


Echidna

by ladyofpride, theoneandonlyzoom



Series: The Poisoned Chalice [3]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Drugging, Dubious Consent?, Gaslighting, Kidnapping, M/M, Mild Language, Unhealthy Obsessions, Violence, doppelgangers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-28 10:06:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 30,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10090595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyofpride/pseuds/ladyofpride, https://archiveofourown.org/users/theoneandonlyzoom/pseuds/theoneandonlyzoom
Summary: The scales have fallen from his eyes; there is nowhere left for Barry Allen to run.His nemesis has finally caught up to him.And he's come with an ultimatum...





	1. The man in the gallery

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: If you've made it this far into our little series, congratulations! Also, thank you for being such great sports. ;)
> 
> Just a quick note: we'll be switching between both Barry's and Hunter's POV this time around. We'll try to make it clear whose perspective we're narrating from at any given time, but, if you prefer, we can always start a narrative shift with something like...~*{name}*~. Just let us know if you'd find it easier to read the story that way.
> 
> Enjoy!

A cold current of air howls through the dark tunnel, kissing the sweat-slicked skin at the nape of his neck. Before him, a dim light flickers in the distance; behind him, the black void stretches into eternity.

Indecisively, he stands there and listens.

For what, he’s not sure. The soft sound of footfalls? The sharp crack electricity? A voice? …All he knows is that has to keep moving, desperately searching for a way out of this labyrinth of half-buried tunnels and chambers. Sometimes, he catches sight of the soft glimmer of metal beneath his feet, a stray stretch of train tracks, rusted and bent out of shape. They lead nowhere but in circles. He learned hours ago not to trust them.

Or was that days?

Time passes at an agonizing pace in the darkness.

Part of him wants to gravitate toward the light, but he’s been tricked by that once before. The sun doesn’t shine down here. The only illumination comes from a string of electric lanterns that line the walls. Most of them have long since burnt out. Some flicker menacingly when _He_ is near. At least these Barry can use as an indication of danger.

Mind made up, he takes a step toward the light. Then he pauses. The air tickles the nape of his neck again, but this time it’s warm and heavy: a breath.

It’s followed by the gentle press of lips

Barry wakes with a kick.

Hunter curses behind him, curling away from Barry on his side of the bed, completely blindsided by this rude awakening.

Embarrassed, Barry rolls over to rub his boyfriend’s back. He hasn’t had a nightmare in ages. Certainly not one so violent. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“It was my bad,” Hunter grimaces. He turns back over slowly then, wincing, left leg bent up toward his chest as he massages his bruised shin. “I shouldn’t have kissed you while you were sleeping.”

“You did nothing wrong,” Barry says quietly. “I was having a bad dream.”

“Oh?” Hunter’s pained expression slowly softens into something more like concern. “What about?”

Barry sighs. It’s hard to explain. The finer details are fading fast from his memory, but the sheer terror of his imaginary experience is still all too real. “I was trapped underground in an abandoned subway station. Something was hunting me, but I don’t know what.”

Hunter stretches his sore leg out finally and then scoots a little closer. He curls his arm around Barry’s waist, a comforting weight against his hip. “That sounds absolutely delightful,” he mutters sarcastically. “I dreamt I was riding a plane to Chicago. I’m not sure why, but I had a feeling I was leaving Central City forever. You weren’t with me…It was very depressing.”

Touched, Barry pulls him in for a kiss.

Hunter, as per usual, deepens it.

It’s one of his qualities that Barry is most grateful for, this boundless energy, a necessary trait when pursuing a relationship with a speedster. Combined with Hunter’s natural eagerness, early morning sex has become a newfound staple in Barry’s life, something he looks forward to when he crawls into bed in the ungodliest hours of the morning to find his lover already fast asleep.

Soon enough, Hunter rolls them over, blanketing Barry with his body. Barry traces his hands across the other man’s chest, up over his shoulders, and then down his arms. Hunter has an impressive physique for a civilian, although he _has_ been frequenting the gym an awful lot lately and it’s no mystery as to why. It’s only been a month since they went toe to toe with the infamous ‘T &E’.

“Like what you see?” Hunter quips before kissing Barry again. Then he leans over toward the bedside table, rummaging through the top drawer. “I need to go shopping soon…”

“When you do, could you get me some brownies?”

Hunter laughs. “Well, your birthday _is_ coming up at the end of the week. Do you maybe want a brownie cake?”

“…How about brownies _and_ a cake?”

“Insatiable,” Hunter murmurs humorously, pulling out a condom.

“Speak for yourself,” Barry chuckles.

Hunter waggles his eyebrows comically and then sets himself to work preparing them. It’s a familiar dance but one that Barry never tires off, desire spiking as Hunter finally settles inside of him, a delightful weight against his inner thighs and pelvis. He feels an enticing surge of electricity in his veins as Hunter’s hips work their slow grind, as though he’s skimming the very surface of the Speed Force. Barry often wonders if Hunter can feel it too, if their physical connection can somehow close the circuit and bring him into the loop, giving him a taste of Barry’s unnatural power.

But he never asks because it hardly seems relevant. He’s known for a long time now that the Speed Force is not an entirely benign being and he has no intention of sharing Hunter with it ever.

Once their passion is spent, Hunter rolls over beside Barry in exhaustion, chest heaving as he fights to catch his breath. Body aching in the best way imaginable, Barry stretches out beside him.

For a long time, the only sound in their shared bedroom is the gentle huff of air between Hunter’s lips, although eventually he inclines his head toward Barry and says, “Brownies and a cake it is.”

Laughing, Barry rolls over and proceeds to kiss him senseless.

~***~

Grocery shopping is always a hellish ordeal.

Barry could do it in a heartbeat, but due to his horribly unpredictable crimefighting schedule he sometimes doesn’t remember that they need milk or eggs until the wee hours of the morning when he’s only just crawled into bed. So, Hunter swings by the shop almost every Wednesday afternoon to stock up on the essentials, but he’s a bit of a maniac when it comes to getting the best quality of anything, which usually translates to him wasting an ungodly amount of time comparing brands.

Such as he is now, with the potatoes.

Irritated, he whips out his cell phone and calls his father.

It only takes a second for the other man to respond, probably because he’s marking papers and is likely eager for a distraction. A professor himself, Hunter knows that feeling all too well. _“Hello?”_

Hunter smiles. “Hi, dad. I hate to bother you but I wanted to know what kind of potatoes you normally serve with roast beef.”

_“Uh…well, any kind really. I like to roast the small red ones, so grab a few of those. Is that what you’re making tonight?”_

“No,” he replies, grabbing a bag of those and dropping it into his basket. “I’m going to make it for Barry’s birthday on Friday.”

His father hisses softly between his teeth.

“What?” Hunter asks, frowning. He leans down to grab his basket and then steadily makes his way around the fruit and vegetable stands toward the front of the store.

_“You didn’t buy the roast yet, did you?”_

“No…Why?”

_“The fresher it is, the better. Pick it up on Friday then—and, **please** , for the love of god, call me before you get started. The last time I had your roast beef, it was the driest thing I’ve ever tasted. Barry doesn’t deserve that kind of agony.”_

“Thanks,” he snorts. “I’ll have you know, Barry eats my cooking all the time and has yet to complain about it.”

_“That’s only because he loves you so much…which, I suppose, is why you should look into attaching yourself to him in a more permanent manner, wouldn’t you agree?”_

“Not that I disagree with you, but we’ve only been dating for a little over six months. It’s a bit early to propose, don’t you think?” That’s not to say he hasn’t been entertaining the idea himself, but he’s never actually brought up the question of marriage with Barry before. He doesn’t imagine Barry has any intention of _leaving_ him, but, in this day and age, marriage is no longer a requirement for acknowledging a committed relationship, romantic as it might seem…

All the same, Hunter finds his eyes straying toward the various roses bundled up together on a water rack nearby the check-out tills. He pulls up short before them, contemplating whether he should buy Barry a bouquet.

He’s not sure if anyone’s ever bought Barry flowers before, or if that’s the kind of gift his boyfriend would appreciate.

Over the phone, he can suddenly hear the ruffle of fabric and static. Confused, he says, “Hello?”

It takes a moment, but then his mother’s soft voice drifts down to him from the other end of the line. _“Hello, darling.”_

“How’s it going?”

_“Good. I just wanted to let you know that I love you. And that you’re getting old.”_

Tempted as he is to roll his eyes, he resists the urge and squeezes them shut instead. Ever since he started dating again, chatting with his parents about his love life has become a painful affair. “And Barry’s still young. He’s only turning 28 this week.”

_“Yes, 28. Not 18. He’s old enough to marry, darling, and he already knows your father and I are approaching that worrisome age where we might not live long enough to see your wedding…”_

“You’re overexaggerating.”

_“Yes, but I don’t mind being petty.”_

Hunter laughs. “Okay, well, thank you for the pep talk. I’m going to hang up now, okay?”

_“Okay, but just remember: once you get engaged, you can take your time planning the wedding.”_

“I know that, mom.”

_“Good—and you don’t have to buy him a ring if the two of you aren’t into the kind of thing. But if you do, I will happily pick one out with you.”_

“Thank you, mom. I—”

_“And the cake too. I want to be there when you pick out the cake.”_

“…Goodbye, mom.”

 _“Goodbye, darling,”_ she replies, followed by the awkward crackle of static again as she hands the phone back to his father.

“Dad?” Hunter says, just to be sure.

 _“Are you going to buy him flowers?”_ his father asks. Hunter wonders if the man isn’t a little bit psychic.

“Well…yes.”

_“Good boy. I’ll talk to you on Friday.”_

“Thank you,” he sighs, waiting for his father to hang up before he slips his cellphone into his jacket pocket. Then he begins examining the roses in earnest.

There’s an overabundance of the traditional red ones, which just so happens to be Barry’s favorite colour, but Hunter finds his gaze wondering to a bundle of two dozen whites, bulbs still tightly pursed, certainly fresher than any of the other bouquets.

Falling back into his old habit of indecisiveness, he contemplates the roses in silence until another man sidles up beside him. His close proximity alone is annoying, but through the corner of his eye Hunter can tell the fellow is also eyeing the contents of his basket, of which there isn’t much: just the potatoes, a 1L carton of milk, a container of two-bite brownies, and a box of condoms…

Hunter decides then and there that he’ll grab the white roses and be on his way—just as the stranger says, “Who’s the lucky girl?”

Irritated by the man’s brazen attitude, Hunter turns to tell him to mind his own business—and finally realizes that the odd fellow is no real stranger at all. Shocked, he instead laughs and says, “ _Ben_?”

“Looking good, Zolomon,” his old high school friend replies, reaching out to give Hunter’s hand a hearty shake. “God, it’s been years, hasn’t it? You still working out?”

“Occasionally.”

“Well, you’ve got one hell of a grip,” his friend quips, taking back his hand. Short and skinny and with a mess of strawberry blond hair, Benjamin Coleman looks about as wild and free as Hunter remembers. He had been the class clown in high school, although one that was much loved by both the student body and the staff alike. “You married yet? I remember you and Jeanine were voted the most likely to tie the knot after graduation.”

Hunter chuckles awkwardly into his fist. “No. Jeanine and I drifted apart in college. I’ve met other people since then.”

“I can tell. You always were a romantic. Whoever your new girl is, she must adore you.”

 Hunter clears his throat. “Uh…he, actually. And yes. I think he does.”

Dumbfounded, Ben blinks up at him in surprise. Then he winces. “God—I must sound like such an _ass_. I’m sorry, Hunter. I didn’t mean to assume anything.”

“That’s alright. I didn’t discover I was bi until much later in life.”

“You and me both.”

Now it’s Hunter’s turn to be surprised

Ben laughs so hard, he struggles momentarily to breath. “I _know_ right?! But I’m an artist. I thought questioning my sexuality was just part and parcel of the trade. Didn’t you go into engineering or something?”

Hunter’s not so sure that old myth is true, but he nods anyway. “Yeah. Got my PhD. I’m currently operating out of a lab at Central City University.”

“Holy hell. Great job, buddy.”

“And what about you? Are you still painting?”

“Oh, _absolutely_.” There’s a touch of pride in Ben’s voice as he smiles up at Hunter. “In fact, the most I’ve made off a painting so far has been a hundred grand.”

Hunter’s jaw literally drops. But, of course, he shouldn’t be so surprised. Ben had always shown so much promise, even as a scrawny sixteen-year-old kid painting elaborate backdrops for their high school plays. Everyone always knew Ben would be going places someday.

“Congratulates,” Hunter says quietly, completely mystified. “You deserve it, man.”

Ben tips his head forward in the smallest of bows. “Thank you. I’m actually back in Central to open another exhibit—well, I’m _also_ here to visit family, but there’s no reason I can’t work and play at the same time. You should come to the opening. For free, of course. And bring your guy, yeah?”

Hunter nods. “Sure. When is it?”

“This Friday.”

He winces. “Oh. Actually, that’s my boyfriend’s birthday.”

“Talk about a coincidence…What are you planning to do?”

“Well…” Now poised with the question, Hunter realizes he doesn’t have much of a plan besides making Barry a nice dinner. They haven’t been on a decent date in a long time. Naturally, that’s because Barry’s life is hectic on the best of days—which is not something Hunter begrudges of him, but it makes him wonder if perhaps he should try to get them out of the house for a change. Maybe they’ll have dinner, swing by the exhibit, and then head toward the riverside park where they first met. There’s an open air jazz bar nearby where they can dance together under the stars…

“His birthday is like two days away,” Ben chuckles. “Clearly, you should’ve given this more thought.”

“Shut up,” Hunter mumbles amiably. “Maybe we’ll drop by your exhibit earlier in the evening.”

“Awesome! Doors open at five. I’ll tell the staff to admit you and your boyfriend for free.”

“Thanks, Ben. That’s very kind of you.”

“It’s nothing.” Rummaging in his coat pockets, his friend pulls out a pen and an old receipt, on the back of which he scribbles an address. “I’m just so happy to see you again after all these years. I often wonder what happened to our other friends.”

“Me too.”

“Well, we’ll have to go out for dinner sometime next week,” Ben replies, handing him the receipt. “I’ll bring my date and you can bring yours.”

“Yeah, I’ll tell Barry.”

“Barry?” Ben grins. “That’s a lovely name.”

Hunter smiles in agreement.

Patting him on the shoulder, Ben wanders past him toward the produce. Over his shoulder, he says, “I’ll see you Friday, then!”

Hunter gives him a small wave in return, watching as one of his oldest friends disappears into the crowd.

What a small world…

Shaking his head in wonder, Hunter’s gaze drifts back to the roses.

Decisively, he finally snatches up the white ones.

~***~

Barry’s never been to an art gallery before.

He was pleasantly surprised when Hunter told him about the exhibit, although mostly because they haven’t done anything outside the apartment in almost a month. He’s especially excited about the jazz bar at the end of the evening, even though he can’t drink. He hasn’t danced in ages and he’s _never_ danced with Hunter before.

So when Friday rolls around, he gets off work early, runs home to enjoy the beautiful meal waiting for him, and then shrugs on a semi-casual combination of dress pants and a nice shirt for their night out on the town. For a short while, Hunter contemplates driving his motorcycle, but since he certainly _will_ be drinking and Barry doesn’t have a license, they call up a cab instead and arrive at the exhibit a little past six o’clock. It’s in one of the older building near S.T.A.R. Labs, up on the second floor, rooms situated above a lovely French restaurant.

And it’s packed.

Hunter told him that his friend was talented, but Barry is openly impressed with the sheer number of people they see milling about, champagne glasses and h'oeurderves in hand. The fact that the tickets would’ve cost them fifty bucks each only impresses him further, although once he gets a good look at Benjamin Coleman’s work he understands why. The man has a very impressionist style, favoring sunny seaside images for the first of the three rooms rented out for his exhibit. The second room focuses more on traditional scenes, such as a woman weaving an elaborate quilt on an old-fashioned loom and a young ballerina warming up backstage before a show. The third is dedicated entirely to Central City, which is where the bulk of the crowd is currently gathered, squeezed together between the maze of false walls and paintings. Most—if not all—of the pieces here are of the Flash or other metahumans, all flattering images of past fights, although it’s clear to Barry that Captain Cold must be one of Benjamin’s favorite subjects.

“Look,” Hunter whispers at his side, gesturing to one of Snart blasting his cold gun at ‘the Flash’, who is nothing more than a brilliant smear of red and yellow lines with crisp corners, a true enough representation of lightning personified. “It’s your best frenemy.”

“I wonder how Len feels about being adored by the masses,” Barry murmurs.

“Hunter!”

Together, they swivel their heads to the left, where a young man with wispy blond hair is pressing through the crowd to greet them. Hunter gives Barry’s arm a gentle squeeze, a silent explanation that this is the artist himself.

“I take it you’re Ben?” Barry says, extending his hand for a shake.

Ben takes it in a firm though friendly grip, beaming up at them both. “Yes, and you must be Barry? It’s a pleasure to meet you! I was hoping you would be able make it.”

“We were happy to have the invite. Your work is truly incredible.”

“It helps that such fascinating characters have taken up residence in Central City these past few years,” he replies, glancing at his painting. “These metahumans are quite fantastic.”

“You seem to have a penchant for Captain Cold,” Hunter notes with a hint of amusement.

“Honestly, it’s the goggles,” Ben sighs. “They just look so sharp. And then there’s his dedication to his guise. I don’t know too many people who would willingly run around in a parka in the dead heat of summer.”

Barry bursts out laughing. He’s often wondered the exact same thing.

Ben smiles at him. “Oh, I _like_ you. Hunter almost never laughed at my jokes in high school. Made me feel like such a pushover.”

“You weren’t funny back then.”

“ _Ha_. Thank you.”

Hunter adjusts his glasses and smirks.

“But speaking of high school…” Ben clears his throat, smile slowly fading. “Could I borrow you for a couple of minutes, Hunter? I promise not to keep the two of you apart for very long.”

Barry turns toward Hunter and pats him gently on the arm. “Have fun. I’m going to count how many Captain Cold paintings there are.”

Hunter winks at him and then gently pushes his way through the crowd after Ben.

Barry watches them go until they disappear around a corner, then he turns to the right and slowly meanders through the maze of paintings, trying to see if Benjamin managed to paint all the Flash’s known villain to-date.

He grabs some h'oeurderves along the way, stopping to chat with a young art student admiring a painting of the Flash running circles around Gorilla Grodd. She gives him a little lesson on how to paint fur, which amuses him for no real reason than it makes him realize how closely the world is now studying him and his enemies. He supposes he should’ve figured that out back when _The Rogues_ exhibit opened up at the museum, but he still gets a little flustered whenever he’s reminded of how sincerely most people adore him.

After a while though, he realizes how hot and stuffy it’s getting in the third display room and pushes his way back toward the entrance. A glance at his new wristwatch—Hunter’s birthday gift to him—tells him that his boyfriend has been gone for close to thirty minutes by now.

Wondering if Hunter had perhaps returned already and somehow missed him, Barry decides to starts up a search in the first room and slowly work his way back to the third. Thankfully, the crowd has dwindled significantly in this area and so the air is cool and fresh. He takes his time walking between the walls of paintings, stopping every now and again to admire something he missed before.

Thankfully, too, he almost immediately finds Hunter standing alone in one corner, silently observing a bright piece depicting a woman in a yellow dress walking barefoot along the beach, trying to hold her sunhat down against the wind. In the distance a jagged cliff rises at a sharp angle above water, atop of which is a blue and white lighthouse.

“This is beautiful,” Barry says as he approaches. And indeed, he loves the way the woman’s dress flutters in the wind. Though her back is turned, she seems so carefree and innocent.  

“I love the hidden messages you sometimes uncover in a piece of art,” Hunter replies, stilling eyeing the piece. “The suck and swell of the ocean against the shore, lapping gently at her ankles; the great burst of power behind the whitecapped waves and the wind; the prominent jut of the lighthouse in the distance...What does this painting say to you, Barry?”

Barry chuckles under his breath, because the way Hunter describes sounds vaguely sexual. Not that he minds, of course, but somehow he doesn’t imagine that was the message Benjamin Coleman was going for when he painted it.

 “ _I_ think I would like to go dancing now before you decide to end this evening early.” Barry replies, “We’ve never danced together.”

“In a way, we certainly have,” Hunter replies softly.

Barry frowns in confusion, He doesn’t _think_ they’ve gone dancing before—but his train of thought is interrupted as Hunter smoothly hooks an arm around Barry’s waist and draws him in effortlessly for a kiss.

And it’s electric.

Quite literally.

Barry pulls back slowly, wondering if that surge of energy was all him. Hunter, at least, appears to have enjoyed it, the corner of his lips quirked in a curious little smile, staring down at Barry with a familiar intensity…

Barry returns the smile, but it feels weak. He senses that Hunter is trying to convey his own hidden message to him now, but he hasn’t the slightest idea what that could be.

And then something occurs to him. It’s a small detail and _should_ be insignificant, but it sends Barry’s heart plummeting into the pit of his stomach for a reason he can’t quite explain. A part of his brain has latched onto some vital clue before the rest of his consciousness has caught up to speed and all it provides him with is a growing sense of unease.

Quietly he asks, “Where are your glasses?”

Hunter laughs.

Then he says, “I’ve missed you, Barry Allen.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Before you ask: Yes, that's really him. No more shenanigans this time, we promise.


	2. The rules of engagement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sorry this took so long. Lady and I were away at a research conference out in the middle of nowhere, so our internet connection was horrible at the best of times.
> 
> So...not the longest chapter, I know, but there's a lot going on in the next one. Hopefully this is still enough to whet your appetite.
> 
> Please, enjoy.

 

_“I’ve missed you, Barry Allen.”_

That one statement alone is enough to make the blood in Barry’s veins run cold.

His first instinct is to deny the cruel reality standing before him now, but denial won’t save him from danger, and as much as he would love to pretend that his boyfriend is paying some tasteless joke he knows Hunter too well to believe him capable of such malice. Therefore, the man who is holding him and who had kissed him so tenderly only moments ago is none other than an imposter—the same imposter who played mind games with him last year and who is, unfortunately, not half as dead as Barry was hoping he would be.

Panicking, Barry shoves the other Zolomon away and takes a healthy step back. Zoom makes a vaguely pained expression at his antics, but it vanishes almost as quickly as it came, nothing more than a mockery of human emotion, easily replaced with a sly smile and an arrogant upward tilt of his chin.

“Let’s not make a scene, Barry,” the other man drawls, glancing at a group of middle-aged woman a few feet away admiring a portrait of a little girl in a rowboat with her father. “There’s no reason to let things escalate in _here_ of all places, now is there?”

Barry swallows hard. He’s very much afraid right now, but not so much that it overwhelms his common sense. Nor does it outweigh his fury. He’s so angry, it takes a considerable amount of effort not to grab the man by the shirt collar and slam him face first into the wall.

Barry takes a deep breath. Lowering his voice, he says, “Where is he?”

Leisurely, Zoom slips his hands into the pockets of his suit jacket and says, “Somewhere safe. No need to worry your pretty little head over him.”

“Let him go,” Barry hisses. “ _Now_.”

“I can’t do that,” Zoom replies, still smiling. “I need him to ensure you behave yourself. Once everything between us is said and done, I’ll release him back into the wild, healthy and whole. You have my word.”

“Your word isn’t worth much here.”

“No, but Ramon’s is. I’m sure you can give him something of my doppelganger’s so he can vibe on his current condition.” Zoom’s gaze slowly drops the length of Barry’s body. “Or maybe he could simply touch you? I suppose that all depends on how much his powers have grown since the last time I saw him.”

His comment makes Barry feel so horribly exposed. He wonders how long the man has been watching them; wonders how much he _knows_ …

 _‘More than enough,’_ Barry muses to himself bitterly.

“I’m sorry,” the other man says quietly. “That was crass.”

Barry is momentarily surprised by the apology, but he doesn’t let that trip him up. “If you were really sorry, you’d let him go.”

He shrugs. “Not possible.”

“Then what is it you want, Zoom?”

“ ‘Hunter’,” he replies, tilting his head curiously to one side. “My name is _Hunter_.”

As petty as Barry would like to be in denying him that small request, he’s not in the best position to harass the other man. He does have his limits though. “I’ll call you Zolomon.”

The other man sighs. Acquiescing though, he nods his head. “Fine. But then I also reserve the right to call you whatever I want.”

“I don’t care what you call me.”

“So ‘darling’ is fair game then?” he grins.

Barry bites his tongue.

Zolomon’s smile widens. “Well, _darling_ , I wasn’t expecting to make much headway with you tonight. I know my return must be a terrible shock to you, so I’m going to let you run home and sleep on this little experience. We’ll chat more tomorrow.”

Barry’s heart leaps up into his throat. Intuitively, he takes a step forward. “No! You—”

“No?” Zolomon interjects. “We could still go dancing if you’d like, but I’m afraid I’m a little tired of talking.”

Barry shakes his head, panicking again. He can’t bear the thought of Hunter being this man’s prisoner for more than an hour, let alone a night. “Just tell me what you want.”

Zolomon glances back at the gaggle of middle aged woman. Then he takes a half-step closer to Barry and leans in conspiratorially toward his ear.

Heart pounding, Barry stands his ground and listens.

But instead of whispering his master plan, Zolomon kisses him on the cheek before taking a small step back again. “It’s going to take a while to explain what I truly want, so we’re going to do this a little a time, Barry. I’ll meet you tomorrow afternoon in a very special place. You already know where that is. 3pm, on the dot. Don’t be late.”

“Or what?” Barry mutters darkly, fighting the urge to wipe the imaginary mark off his cheek left by Zolomon’s kiss. “You’ll kill my boyfriend?”

“Again, I have no intention of killing him. However, the further you drag this out, the longer you’ll have to wait to see him.”

Seething, Barry inhales deeply through his nose. “So help me God, Zolomon…”

Silently, Zolomon sizes him up again. Then the corners of his eyes and lips soften into a more natural smile, as though he were entertaining fond memories instead of pondering how to further antagonize an old enemy. For a moment, he looks very much like the Hunter Barry knows and loves.

“3 o’clock,” Zolomon says again, faintly.

“Where?”

“Like I’ve said before, you already know the place. It’s where you changed both our lives for the better.”

Barry frowns in confusion.

Before he can think of what to say next though, Zolomon vanishes in a burst of blinding blue light, which streaks past Barry through the labyrinth of paintings in the direction of the front door. Barry is both too startled to follow him and suddenly the centre of attention as the group of older woman and a few teenagers gravitate toward him, asking him if he saw the speedster that just passed through here. He hastily tells them he saw nothing and then bolts for the door, running down the stairs toward the main street in a mad bid for privacy. Once he’s certain no one can see him, he taps into the Speed Force and dashes down the street toward S.T.A.R. Labs.

He makes a beeline for the Cortex and is surprised to see no one there.

But there is evidence of someone having been there not too long again because a half-finished Slurpee sits on the main console and one of the computer screens is paused on a scene from _Back to the Future_. Cisco, at the very least, should be nearby.

Still frustrated, Barry kicks over one of the rolling chairs beside the console and then paces back into the hallway, face buried in his hands. Zoom is back—Zoom is _back_ and Barry should’ve been watching for him.

This is all his fault.

Once in the hallway, he winds up his fist and punches a dent in one of the metal wall panels before he turns his back on it and slides down to the floor. Having turned the clock back so many times before and introducing the world to certain disaster, he should’ve realized that this reality was also going to spiral out of control sooner or later. He doesn’t deserve to be happy and the Speed Force is never going to let him forget that.

Exhausted, he bends his knees and props his arms up against them. Then he hangs his head down against his chest and hopes to God Zolomon keeps his word about Hunter.

And this is the way Jesse Wells discovers him not thirty seconds later.

She comes barreling toward him in a flash of golden lightning, skidding to a halt before him with disheveled hair and a look of pure unbridled joy. _“Look at what I can do!”_ she exclaims, but then she sees the look on his face and the dent in the wall and quietly asks, “Are you okay, Barry?”

He wants to be happy for her right now, because in all the times he’s tried to change his destiny, both she and Wally always become speedsters in their own right, a gift which they treat with more wisdom and care than he ever did. She’ll become a great hero one day, he knows it, but she’s untrained at the moment and about to face one of her oldest fears.

Deciding then and there that there’s no easy way of telling this to her, he tears off the proverbial bandage and says, “Zoom is back.”

And just like that, the light in her eyes goes out, her mouth gaping in disbelief. “Are…are you sure?  I mean, you’ve already had a couple of false alarms this year.”

“It was him,” Barry says quietly. “He took Hunter.”

Barry can tell she’s panicking on the inside too, but fortunately she’s able to keep a relatively level head as she runs a hand through her hair. “Oh shit,” she says.

Barry nods and buries his face between his knees again.

He has absolutely no idea what he’s going to do.

~***~

Hunter comes to slowly, lying on the cold hard ground. There’s a dim light above him, but it might as well be the centre of the sun so far as his pounding head is concerned. It forces him to screw his eyes shut before he vomits, stomach roiling miserably as he fights the wave of bile rising in his throat.

What the hell hit him?

Rolling over onto his side, he lifts himself first up onto his elbow and then a little further until he’s sitting upright on the ground. Something clatters to the floor in front of him. Squinting, he searches for it blindly with his hands, only realizing it’s his glasses once he gets a good enough grip on them.

He slips them on and tries to blink away the starbursts flashing across his vision.

 _“Turn off the light,”_ a male voice says somewhere above him. Then, with a hint of irritation, _“You’re lucky you didn’t kill him.”_

 _“I’m lucky he didn’t kill **me** ,”_ another man mutters darkly.

Hunter wonders if they’re talking about him. He doesn’t remember fighting _anyone_.

Suddenly, the light above him goes out completely. There are other lights on the far side of the dark room, but they’re dim enough that they aren’t giving him too much grief, so he just sits there for a moment, heart racing inside his chest as he tries to calm himself down a bit before he has an anxiety attack.

Hunter blinks again, waiting for his vision to adjust. Then he realizes who his kidnappers are:

Benjamin Coleman and the infamous Greene.

The two man are standing about five feet away from him on the other side of a glass panel. Greene’s lithe figure is decked out in the same black gear he wore last time, bullet proof vest and all, complete with an automatic rifle cradled in his arms. He studies Hunter with his pale blue eyes, the faintest hint of a smile at the corner of his lips, characteristically callous and unkind.

Ben is similarly decked out in black, minus the military gear. He looks like a cat burglar, sans the mask, hands planted on his hips in an unmistakable stance of victory. He, however, looks a little more pensive, eyes locked on Hunter as though he’s a particularly difficult mystery in need of solving.

Hunter addresses his first question to him: “Where’s your doppelganger?”

In response to this, this ‘Ben’ slowly smiles a little more good-naturedly. _“Safe and sound,”_ he replies, his voice drifting down to Hunter from an overhead speaker. _“You don’t have to worry about him.”_

 “How long have you had him?”

 _“If you’re wondering who it was you were talking to the other night, that was me.”_ He tips his head forward in a small bow.

Agitated, Hunter slowly rises to his feet.  “Are you going to let him go now?”

Green laughs at this question for some reason. _“Believe it or not, everyone gets to go home eventually. Those are our orders.”_

Hunter slowly turns his gaze on the other man. He knows he should be afraid, but remembering how casually Greene entertained the idea of handing his boyfriend over to his dead commander last month only whips Hunter up into a mighty fury instead.

Greene sizes him up and then flashes him one of his trademark lazy smiles _. “I know I should be pissed off at you, but everything turned out for the better in the end. Honestly, I’m just really impressed with the little charade you pulled off last month. You’re a lot more like your doppelganger than you know.”_

That’s the last thing Hunter wanted to hear from anyone, but since there’s nothing clever he can think of to say to that, he turns aside and begins pacing, taking stock of his new surroundings.

He’s surrounded on three sides by glass panels, not too unlike the chamber Greene had thrown Barry in before. There’s a natural stone wall behind him with a small air vent set high up in the leftmost corner of his cell, right beside a tiny intercom speaker. There is only one glass door to his cell, which faces his two assailants.

Hunter has no illusions of that being unlocked. 

On either side of him are two similar glass chambers, bringing the grand total of bizarre prison cells to five. And on the other side of this large room are a series of metal shelves housing various tools and metal scrap, as well as a few empty desks and a couple of tables loaded up with blueprints.

Hunter wonders what they’re building.

Finally, he deems it necessary to ask the million-dollar question, though he doubts they’ll give him a straight answer: “Where am I?”

 _“Nowhere special,”_ Greene replies coyly, just as Hunter expected. Then his wristwatch beeps, stealing his attention away. He stares silently at the screen for quite some time, seemingly lost in thought.

Ben glances over at it in interest. Then he winks at Hunter and wanders off toward the door at the far end of the room, disappearing through it without another word.

Annoyed, Hunter asks, “What the hell do you want with me?”

 _“Patience,”_ Greene replies, finally tearing his eyes away from his watch. Then he takes a few steps back, cradles his automatic rifle casually between his hands again, and waits.

Hunter frowns. At long last, the first trickle of fear finally runs its usual course down his spine. Greene looks so oddly triumphant, almost as if—

For a moment, Hunter is blinded but a great burst of light. He squeezes his eyes shut in agony, raising a trembling hand to his throbbing head. The pain is almost enough to bring him to his knees.

It subsides slowly, pounding against his temples in receding waves. He reaches under his glasses to rub the moisture from his eyes and then cautiously cracks them open again, blinking away the fresh batch of starbursts dancing across his vision.

And soon as he can see clearly again, he stumbles back in disbelief.

Standing before him is the dark figure he’s become all too familiar with this past year. Blue lightning crackles around his shadowy form, oily black eyes trained on Hunter from the other side of the glass. He breathes heavily through the ghoulish slits in his mask, audibly enough that Hunter can hear him through the overhead speaker. Then he reaches up to pull said mask off, and Hunter finally sees the man’s mess of blonde hair, followed shortly by his face…

 _His_ face.

Hunter’s hands tremble at his side.

He’s seen a lot of unusual things since he’s gotten to know Barry, but this has got to be the worst. In fact, he has such a hard time interpreting the sight before him, he goes into a small state of shock. He feels numb inside; defeated. His vision blurs.

He stumbles back another step until he hits the cold stone wall.

This can’t be happening.

Handing his mask over to Greene, his doppelganger says, _“Drop that on the desk on your way out, would you? I’d like us to have a moment alone.”_

Smirking, Greene takes the mask and does just that. Zoom stares at Hunter in silence, pulling off his gloves slowly, until the other man has left the room.

Hunter is the first to break the silence. “How are you still alive?”

Zoom smiles. _“Didn’t Barry ever tell you about my time remnants? I never leave home without making one. Considering what happened to my other self, I’m sure you understand my paranoia.”_

God…Barry and his team were always right to suspect Hunter made another copy of himself prior to his last battle. He’s just been buying his time since then. Although _why_ he would need to stall for so much time is beyond him Hunter.

Idly, Zoom takes both of his gloves into one hand and slaps them gently against the open palm of the other. _“You know, I’ve always been a little lost on what to think of you…”_

Hunter really doesn’t care what kind of impression he’s made on Zoom, except for the fact that the other man might just kill him if he isn’t too amused. Therefore, Hunter just stands there and listens, wondering whether there’s a reason for his being here or if Zoom just wanted to toy with him first before putting him out of his misery.

 _“On the one hand, you’ve beaten me to the punch.”_ Zoom sighs, as though Hunter has only caused him a relatively minor, if somewhat annoying, inconvenience. _“I can’t say I’m not jealous that you’ve been intimate with him already, but on the other hand…you’ve answered some very important questions for me—namely whether or not my attraction to Barry was mutual.”_

“Don’t lie,” Hunter says finally, anger seeping into his voice. It steadies his hands as he curls them into fists at his sides. “You don’t give a damn about Barry.”

His doppelganger shakes his head. _“You’re wrong, but I know why you’d think so. There is a part of me that I can’t always control, and in my darker moments I’ve been quite cruel to Barry. But you can ask Detective West yourself—I never wanted to kill him. It was always my intention to keep him by my side.”_

“Like a pet, you mean.” Hunter spits, disgusted. “Or a trophy. You don’t _love_ him.”

 _“Don’t I?”_ Zoom asks, head tilted curiously to one side. He takes a step closer to the glass. _“I don’t know…I’ve never really felt this intensely about anyone before. I want every inch of him; I want his anger and adoration; I want his every thought to be consumed by me...Isn’t that how you feel about him? I’ve seen the way you are with him. You’re just as possessive as I am.”_

Hunter should’ve known Zoom was spying on them, but his comment rocks Hunter to his core. _How_ closely has the other man been watching them? Has he seen Barry in his most vulnerable moments, tired and afraid after a battle nearly lost, or alive and vibrant under Hunter’s touch? Has he heard the words they whisper to each other in the dead of night, those hard-earned confessions of love or fear or yearning…?

Doesn’t this man know what Barry _really_ thinks of him?

Quietly, he seethes, “I’m nothing like you.”

 _“Yes, you are,”_ Zoom says, so matter-of-factly it almost stings. _“Why do you think Barry is so attracted to you?”_

“Because I’ve always been kind to him—because I _respect_ him.”

This earns him a sharp bark of a laugh. _“Well then…let’s take a step back and observe the evidence as it stands, shall we? Why did Barry first agree to go to coffee with you?”_

Sickened as he is by the fact that Zoom’s been watching their every move, Hunter swallows down the bile that rises in his throat and says, “Because, he thought I was you. I _know_ that already, but I—”

_“And when did he know, irrefutably, that you weren’t me? Was that before or after he asked you to sleep with him?”_

After, obviously, when Cisco was finally able to vibe on him, but Hunter doesn’t doubt—not even for a moment—that Barry would’ve slept with him if he’d had any serious concerns that Hunter was his doppelganger. Barry _knew_ he was genuine.

 _“You can deny it all you want, but I know Barry better than you think.”_ Zoom continues. _“I’ve seen him at his worst. I’ve seen the way he yearned for me when I first came to his world.”_

Anger flashes through Hunter like an electric jolt. Finally, he pushes himself away from the wall and marches up to the glass. “He _looked_ _up_ _to you_! He was _vulnerable_ and you took advantage of him!”

Zoom tilts his chin up at Hunter, amusement dancing in his eyes. _“You’d like to think that, but I helped Barry in a way he’ll never truly appreciate. I taught him how to be a better speedster; I taught him to recognize his darker instincts and utilize them. Everything I did was to help him realize his true potential.”_

“And so what?” Hunter snaps. “You think you’ve improved him somehow and now that means you have a _claim_ to him?”

Zoom offers him a small smile, eyes half-lidded, as though he were watching a small child throw a tantrum. _“The Speed Force chooses its conduits wisely. Enemies we might’ve once been, we’re still more similar than you think. We vibrate at the same frequency at our core.”_ His doppelganger glances aside, momentarily lost in thought. _“Truthfully, I didn’t decide that Barry and I would be partners—the Speed Force made us so. I’m just living up to my destiny. It would be nice if Barry could get with the program already.”_

“Barry makes his own destiny.”

 _“Does he?”_ Zoom chuckles. _“I’ve been jumping back between our two Earths a lot lately. I know he’s been meddling with the timeline. He should be aware by now that he can’t escape his destiny. Once he accepts his fate, his life will fall back into order again.”_

“And you somehow think kidnapping me is going to bring him around to your way of thinking?”

Zoom flinches in mock admonishment, _“Well…I had to get the ball rolling **somehow**. But don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you.”_ He smiles again. _“In fact, you’re going to be a free man sooner than you think.”_

“When?”

_“A couple of days at most. Assuming nobody does anything stupid, of course. Barry’s team tends to get emotional over the most insignificant things…”_

Hunter shakes his head. “And what possible reason could you have for letting me go? You killed Barry’s father on a whim. Didn’t you drag me here to make him suffer?”

Zoom’s smile widens. _“Barry belongs with me and soon enough he’ll come to the same conclusion. That’s why I don’t need to kill you. At the end of the day, you’re going to walk out of his life forever and he’s not going to spare you so much as a second thought.”_

“You’re delusional,” Hunter replies, somewhat surprised by just how true that statement really is. Barry wasn’t exaggerating the extent of his psychopathy.

_“You’d like to think so, but you know what they say: ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating’. By the end of next week, you’ll see what I mean and **then** you’ll understand just how serious I am about this.”_

Hunter doubts that, but he figures his doppelganger won’t understand that himself until his master plan falls to pieces at his feet.

Both physically and emotionally exhausted by this most _unpleasant_ turn of events, Hunter walks back over to the wall and leans against it. He’s hoping Zoom doesn’t plan on mocking him for the whole hour. He doesn’t have the patience or energy to put up with this kind of nonsense for very long.

 _“Not much of a fighter, are you?”_ Zoom quips.

Hunter ignores the barb and simply stares at his doppelganger.

Getting the clue, Zoom sighs and steps back from his glass prison. _“I’ll be bringing you a companion soon. Hopefully that brightens up your mood.”_

“Leave the team alone,” Hunter snaps, alarmed. “You already have me. That’s _more_ than enough leverage to use against Barry.”

 _“He’s not a member of your team,”_ Zoom replies, giving him a wink. _“And as much as I adore Barry, not everything is about him.”_

Confused, Hunter’s gaze falls on the blueprints strewn across the tables on the far side of the room. Zoom follows his line of sight and then flashes him another smile.

Just as Hunter begins wonders how difficult it would be to worm a few more details of this other plan out of Zoom, the man vanishes in another burst of light, the door at the far enough of the room slamming shut behind him.

Hunter rubs his stinging eyes again and sinks to the floor. Even after just seeing the man for the first time in person, he can hardly believe Zoom is still alive. Having masqueraded as the speed demon twice before, Hunter’s seen firsthand how terrified Barry is of him, of how grateful he once was to finally be ‘free’ of his old nemesis.

But now…

Now, Hunter has no idea how Barry is going to handle this.

~***~

Barry doesn’t know how he’s going to handle this.

He paces back and forth in front of the main console as Cisco and Jesse hunch over their computers, pouring over CCTV and security footage from tonight, centered on the streets surrounding the building hosting Coleman’s art exhibit.

Jesse, of course, finishes first, the scroll on her mouse still spinning as she looks up from her screen. She transfers her footage over to the wall of TVs against the fall wall and waits for everyone to turn their attention to the video before she hits play.

Heart pounding, Barry watches the high-angled shot from the alleyway behind the building as two men dressed in black haul Hunter’s comatose figure into the back of a white, non-descript van, followed shortly by Benjamin Coleman. Even before he’s completely slammed the doors shut behind their little crew, the van peels out of the alleyway and hangs a hard left, vanishing around the corner of the building.

“No license plate,” Jesse sighs, “and they make a clean break toward the city limits. They could be headed to Star City for all we know.”

“Hopefully they are,” Cisco grumbles as he whips out his cell phone, fingers flying furiously over the keyboard. “I’ll ask Felicity to keep an eye out for them, but I somehow doubt Zoom or his men would be dumb enough to send Hunter there. Everyone knows the Flash and the Green Arrow are pals.”

Leaning against one of the side desks, and looking very much as though he’s been dragged through hell and back again, Harry quietly says, “What about that old factory they took Barry to last month? Even if Hunter isn’t there, maybe we can grab someone for answers?”

Barry doesn’t wait for anyone else’s input on Harry’s suggestion—he flies out the door and through the city streets, blind to the vehicles and people that pass him in a blur, legs burning as he pushes himself onward. And he doesn’t stop until he reaches the old and dilapidated poultry plant where he was held prisoner, the gates to the facility standing wide open and the courtyard oddly deserted. Equally as peculiar, the main factory building had apparently collapsed inward at one point, long scorch marks extending across the ground out from where the doors used to be.

Baffled, Barry runs around to the back of the building where the damage is less severe. He’s jumps through a busted window on the main floor and slips around debris as he searches for the elevator shaft he remembers from his last trip. Once he finds it, he pries open the two metal doors—only to stare down the half-collapsed shaft where he just barely make out a pile of rubble blocking his way down. He could probably squeeze through there if he really wanted, but something tells him the situation is going to look a hell of a lot worse from here on out.

Stepping back from the elevator, Barry raises his hand to his headset and flicks on his mic. “Guys, there’s nothing here.”

There’s a thoughtful pause before Cisco says, _“Describe ‘nothing’.”_

“Everyone is gone. It looks like they burned the place and fled.”

 _“Maybe they were afraid you’d come back for them,”_ Jesse suggests. _“Cisco said this was a ‘research facility’, so they probably just wanted to get rid of any evidence of their work.”_

“Maybe,” Barry replies, because it’s a definite possibility. That means, however, that his journey here was a complete bust.

Although…

Barry taps his commlink again. “Cisco, O’Shaughnessy said this was only one of Zoom’s known bases of operation. Could you contact him and ask for any other information he might have?”

_“I think he went back to New York, but I’ll give him a call. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to know ‘you-know-who’ is still alive and kicking.”_

“Thank you,” Barry says softly, wandering back through the building toward the busted window. Once he climbs outside, he tugs of his gloves and pulls back his hood, running a hand through his hair. He knows he should run back to S.T.A.R. Labs now and brainstorm with the team, but he just doesn’t have the energy. He needs a moment to breathe; to _think_.

Worn out and anxious, he drags his feet around the building. He knows tomorrow he’ll be seeing Zolomon again, but he has to figure out what he’s going to say when they meet, how to squeeze a little more information out of him—but before even that, he has to figure out _where_ to find the man. All he said was that he would see him in a _‘special place’_ where Barry changed both of their lives _‘for the better’_ …

S.T.A.R. Labs, perhaps? After all, they were only ever ‘friends’ when Zolomon had first been working alongside the team. The other man had never really bonded on Earth 2 because he antagonized Harry to no end and everyone else had been his underling, so perhaps the facility brought back fond memories. It was also because of S.T.A.R. Labs that both he and Barry had gained their powers and was, after all his scheming, where he was eventually able to steal Barry’s powers. The building obviously meant a lot to both of them.

However, it wasn’t exactly a ‘private’ place for just the two of them and Barry had the feeling the man would want to choose something more…personal, at least if it was true that he wanted to woo Barry in his own demented way.

Shaking his head, Barry makes his way slowly now toward the front gate. Tears sting at the corner of his eyes. He knows the speed force wasn’t through with punishing him yet, not by a long shot. Zoom’s return is just another example of how inescapable his destiny really is.

But what is he supposed to do now…Surrender?

Barry rubs his eyes before his tears have a chance to fall, staring at the ground as he reaches the gate—and then he stops.

It’s only because the moon is bright and the sky is clear that he’s able to see it, the white rose lying on the grass beside the entrance. Beside it is a small note, both of which Barry picks up tentatively.

In Hunter’s elegant scrawl is written just two words: _Be patient_.

Barry shudders.

He doesn’t know if the man is watching him now or he left the rose earlier on in the night, anticipating that Barry would search for his boyfriend here first. Likewise, the fully bloomed rose was either bought a few days ago, just for this event, or taken from the two dozen Hunter got for Barry back in their apartment. Either way, the forward gesture sends a chill down Barry’s spine. He can’t stand the thought of Zolomon watching their every move for god knows how long.

Terrified, Barry runs back to S.T.A.R. Labs and decides to stay the night.

Oddly enough though, he thinks he might finally know where Zolomon intends to meet him…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: That Zolomon. Such a creeper...
> 
> TLDR: The man who doesn't know how to love confesses his love. The object of his desire is understandably weirded out, but mostly just peeved that his boyfriend is trapped in a perpetual timeout zone. Said boyfriend is not pleased. And tomorrow is date night. Oh joy...


	3. Once upon a dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: We apologize for the long wait. Both Lady and I were insanely busy this past month and she got food poisoning just last night when she was going to do her final edit of the chapter. In a day or two she will fix up any of the horrendous spelling/grammar mistakes I missed, but I'm sorry that you have to suffer through them now all the same. If you see any glaring errors, don't hesitate to let me know.
> 
> NEW edit: ladyofpride is doing her PhD Candidacy exam this summer and so this story might be on hold until October. It hasn't been abandoned, we just started this as a group project and I would like to keep it that way. Thank you for your kindness and patience.

“So…the answer is no?”

Special Agent O’Shaughnessy, fielding his second pre-dawn call from Cisco that day, sighs softly into his receiver, a dismal sound which is only amplified by the speakers lining the wall on the other side of the Cortex. _“I didn’t say that. I said ‘ **maybe** , **but not likely** ’.”_

Leaning back in his symbolic throne—it being the center swirly chair at the main console—Cisco folds his hands behind his head and returns the agent’s sigh with one infinitely more world-weary and long-suffering. “Dude, that’s as good as saying ‘ _no_ ’. Either you know where Zoom’s other hideouts are or you don’t. I mean, haven’t you and your ragtag team of agents been working on this since you returned to New York?”

 _“We have a few probable locations, but we haven’t been able to verify anything yet,”_ O’Shaughnessy clarifies, somehow managing to sound as calm and resolute as he did three hours ago when Cisco first alerted him to Zoom’s return. _“Of course, I’m more than happy to give you the list, but I’m afraid you need to stay put for the time being.”_

Standing where he is now in the middle of the Cortex, arms crossed, feeling antsy and a little sick, Barry frowns. “Why?”

_“Because, correct me if I’m wrong, but Mr. Ramon here informed me earlier that all you turned up in your last search was a rose and a note asking you to ‘be patient’. That’s a clear indication that Zoom is watching you and is more than aware of the fact that you’re acting out of turn, so to speak. If he finds you casing out his other hideouts before we’re ready to act, he might retaliate.”_

Barry opens his mouth to protest, but no words are forthcoming. He already knows Zolomon’s been watching him like a hawk, but the urge to bring the fight to his old foe before the other man can gain any real momentum is a difficult thing to ignore. He doesn’t want to wait or ‘ _be patient_ ’. He doesn’t _want_ to leave Hunter alone with that maniac for another minute…

Lurking in the threshold of Cisco’s side office, Harry finally tosses his own opinion into the debate by saying, “Zoom enjoys his games a little too much, Barry. If he catches sight of you snooping around, he might punish Hunter

Exhausted, Barry runs a hand through his hair. “Well...when the FBI was officially working against Zoom, didn’t somebody try to profile him? What kind of tactics should I be employing against him?”

 _“We did,”_ O’Shaughnessy admits quietly, _“And truthfully, his sociopathy is not all that unique. But the fact that he isn’t human means that we can’t deal with him the same way would we most criminals. Not to mention, his resources are considerably greater than our own. We can’t take the classic approach to taking him down.”_

Anxiously, Barry pivots sharply on his heel and begins pacing across the room. It’s 5am and nobody has slept since he burst in here in the early evening. Somehow, though, he feels as though nobody is going to get much sleep for a long time to come.

 _“Mr. Allen,”_ O’Shaughnessy continues, trying to get his attention, _“if you were anyone else, I would urge you to stay as far away from him as possible, but given your own abilities and his lack of limitations, I realize that that really isn’t an option for you. We might not be able to bargain with him, but that doesn’t mean we’re entirely without a strategy.”_

“Then what should I do?”

_“If you feel up to meeting him this afternoon, then do it. And while you’re there, demand evidence of your boyfriend’s wellbeing. If you feel as though you can manage it, see if you can find a way to speak or meet with Dr. Zolomon in person.”_

Cisco, a faint glimmer of hope burning in his eyes, nods his head slowly. “Okay…I think I’ve seen enough spy movies to know where this is going.”

_“The situation is a little more complex than that, I’m afraid. For example, the Bureau normally wouldn’t agree to give anything to a hostage taker right off the bat. We would try to break down their demands into smaller requests and then lowball them to buy ourselves time. Mr. Allen can still employ that strategy—but, again, Zoom is not a run-of-the-mill criminal. He can wage war against an entire world on his own. Being a speedster, the only one equipped to deal with him is, unfortunately, The Flash.”_

“I’ll figure something out,” Barry murmurs, because he always does. But at the same time, he knows he’s not going to get out of this situation unscathed. However this battle is destined to end, Barry’s going to suffer. “In the meantime, can we still count on you to narrow down our search for locations?”

_“Yes. I’m afraid I’m currently tangled up in something important, but I will try to return to Central City sometime in the next few days. I’m sorry that I can’t make it sooner.”_

“That’s hardly your fault,” Cisco replies. “It’s not as though Zoom announced his return.”

O’Shaughnessy hums wearily in ascent. Then quietly he says, _“Mr. Allen…please be careful.”_

‘Be patient’, ‘be careful’…

Barry doesn’t know if he can honestly be either of those things.

All the same, he says, “Will do. We’ll keep you updated.”

_“Thank you.”_

Barry waits until he can hear the telltale _‘click’_ of the other man disconnecting the call before he turns to observe his silent audience on the other side of the room.

In one corner, leaning against one of the additional computer consoles, is the newly minted speedster, Jesse Wells, decked out in a sweatshirt and baggy pants, back from yet another trial run. Beside her—and still stealing glances whenever Jesse’s gaze is averted—is the terribly lovesick and understandably excited Wally West. Someday, he too will become a speedster, as he has been in every other timeline Barry’s endured, usually following some terrible calamity—perhaps not too unlike the one unfolding before them at this very moment. Barry just hopes that this isn’t one of the realities in which either of his fellow conduits of the Speed Force die.

Standing before the entrance to Caitlin’s pseudo med-bay is the woman herself, her gaze unnaturally cold and steely as she evaluates the matter at hand, and Detective Joe West, hands braced against his hips in his usual stance of defiance. And off in the other corner stands Iris West, her fingers already flying over her phone, searching for any and all information concerning Benjamin Coleman and the other people at the exhibit who professed to know the artist in person. Finally, behind Barry, pulse rifle cradled with a too-easy familiarity in his hands, is Harry Wells, possibly the only person capable of looking more pissed than Barry feels at the moment. He had initially been stunned silent at the news of Zoom’s return, but his old fury at Earth 2’s native speedster immediately came flaring back with a passion once he realized what was at stake here.

All in all, theirs is a pretty solid team.

And it’s topped off by Hartley Rathaway, who only now just waltz into the Cortex with a knapsack hefted over one shoulder. Grinning, he deposits it on the main console beside Cisco’s keyboard and says, “I think some of your tech is in need of an upgrade.”

Equal parts insulted and intrigued, Cisco immediately starts rummaging through the bag.

Barry smiles.

~***~

By the time 3pm rolls around, Barry is already in the park.

Today’s weather forecast threatened rain all morning, but despite the swollen grey storm clouds that hang heavily above the city, Barry’s yet to see a single drop. Even so, it’s still a little chilly outside, so Barry throws on his long blue raincoat and wanders down the same winding path he and Hunter have walked together many a time before until he reaches the bench where they first met. Sure enough, Zolomon is already sitting in Hunter’s usual spot, wearing a long black coat with the collar turned up against the wind. A gentle breeze ruffles his hair the same way it does Hunter’s and kisses a rosy blush against his cheeks the same way too.

But it _isn’t_ Barry’s boyfriend and the sight of him only makes his heart ache worse than it did last night when he found that rose.

Bone tired from spending the whole night strategizing with his team and irritated that he has to put up with this stupid charade, Barry approaches the bench at a casual pace, openly scowling at the other man.

Zolomon, eyes currently trained on the two women huddled together over the stone chess table on the lawn before him, slowly draws his gaze away from them to smile up at Barry. There’s such a soft and natural touch to his look that’s so painfully akin to the way Hunter usually stares at him that it somehow manages to upset Barry even further.

Crossing his legs, Zolomon stretches an arm out along the back of the bench and says, “Have a seat.”

Of course, Zolomon’s situated himself in the middle of the bench, which forces Barry to sit uncomfortably close to him, but at least he has the decency not to hoop his arm around Barry’s shoulders when he does take a seat. Instead, Zolomon lets an odd kind of silence to settle over them before he takes a deep breath and says, “I wish it would’ve rained. I’ve always loved the smell of it.”

Barry sighs. He’s not in the mood for small talk. “Despite what you think, this isn’t where I ‘changed our lives for the better’. This is where I met Hunter.”

“And what is this world’s _‘Hunter’_ if not a stand-in for me?” Zolomon postulates humorously. Then he licks his lips and says, “Ditch the mic, please. This conversation is for our ears only.”

Barry inclines his head toward the other man, expression blank.

Predictably, Zolomon laughs at his omission, reaching into his coat pocket with his free hand to whip out something that looks like a pager. “If that’s the way you want to do it…”

When the pin verification screen pops up, Zolomon dials ‘003’. Then there’s a loud hissing in Barry’s ear, followed by a painful _pop_!

Startled, Barry digs the commlink out of his ear and flings it violently onto the sidewalk in front of them.

Zolomon tuts at him in admonishment. “No need to be so childish, Barry. I know you’re young yet, but you need to start behaving like an adult.”

“ _Don’t_ patronize me,” Barry mutters, rubbing the side of his head. “If anyone needs to change their behavior, it’s you. Seeing as I am an adult, maybe you should start treating me like one.”

“Age is only one of many dimensions,” Zolomon muses. “You were such an innocent little thing when I met you and you still are. But that’s why we’re here today, to bring ourselves eye-to-eye on an important matter.”

“And what matter is that?”

“The anomaly of speedsters, of course.”

Barry blinks in confusion.

Zolomon smiles. “That is to say the fact that the existence of speedsters isn’t such an anomaly after all. I’ve travelled to a number of other Earths already, Barry, and I’ve seen my fair share of them.” He licks his lips and shakes his head slowly, as though remembering a fond memory. “I didn’t always make myself known to them, but I’ve noticed three important things: first, there is always _at_ _least_ one speedster on every Earth, even on those where no other metahumans exist; second, all speedsters have a propensity toward violence, regardless of whether they use their powers for good or evil; and thirdly, each speedster eventually meets another of its kind, someone that they will inevitably fight or befriend.”

As fascinating as his observations are, Barry fails to see where Zolomon is going with this. “From what I’ve seen so far, I can believe that much is true, but I don’t understand why you think I should care.”

“Then let me ask you a question: regardless of how a speedster is made, would you agree that the Speed Force had always intended their conception?”

Cautiously, Barry nods his head, because he knows that to be a fact too. Good or evil, a speedster is nothing without their connection to the Speed Force, and that connection is only made at the behest of the Speed Force itself.

Zolomon smiles a little wider. “We are a species all our own, but because there is often only one of us for the billions of humans on every Earth, we have a natural inclination to search each other out. The fact that we often fight is just the consequence of our greater passions and the reason why we must initially be kept apart. At the end of the day though, we have the same basal urges as every other species in the world, to fight and to fu—”

“ _Don’t_ finish that sentence,” Barry warns him, closing his eyes as he tries to banish the thought. “If you expect me to believe the Speed Force has any kind of design for us being together, you’re out of your mind.”

“Am I?” Zolomon says softly, just as he brushes the pad of his thumb against the exposed patch of skin on the nape of Barry’s neck.

The effect such a small gesture has on Barry is instantaneous. It’s as though someone’s opened the floodgates and tossed him headfirst into the Speed Force, the power and the heat it usually affords him resonating in every cell of his body, from the cut of his teeth all the way down to the tip of his toes. He feels the same way he did the first time he ran as a speedster, losing himself in that heady stream of electricity and elation, becoming suddenly intimate in an indescribable way with one of the greatest forces in the multiverse.

Once the pulse passes, Barry sucks in a deep breath and jumps to his feet, raising his hand protectively to cover the back of his neck. He almost stumbles as he twirls around to face the other man.

Zolomon just sits there, eyes closed. Eventually though he opens them again, smiling faintly as he tilts his head back with the same boneless quality that reminds Barry all too much of a post-sexual haze.

Barry knows he should say something but his mouth is dry, tongue sticking to the back of his throat.

He doesn’t know how to explain what just happened.

But Zolomon does. “ _That_ …is the Speed Force,” he whispers, blinking slowly, evidently still riding the high. “If you think The Powers That Be don’t want us to fuck, you’d figure it wouldn’t be so easy to awaken the Speed Force in each other. Or, at the very least, they wouldn’t make it feel so…orgasmic.”

“Don’t say that,” Barry wheezes, suddenly a little short of breath.

Why does he feel as though he just ran the circumference of the earth?

“Say what?” Zolomon teases. “The R-rated words? And here I thought you _wanted_ me to treat you like an adult…”

Barry shakes his head frantically.

He knew Zolomon was going to have the upper hand in today’s conversation, but he didn’t think the other man would have overpowered him so completely in the first five minutes of their visit. Barry doesn’t know how he’s going to recover his footing, and for a speedster that means he might as well be dead.

Attempting to clear his mind, he turns away from Zolomon and scans the horizon. The skyscrapers of Keystone City jut up into the bruised sky on the other side of the river, the industrial plants heaving grey puffs into the ever-darkening madness. A slight mist hovers over the westernmost quadrant of the city where the rain has already begun to fall, steadily carried eastward by the winds toward Central.

Barry takes a deep breath, realizing he’s caught the attention of one of the two women playing chess. Her name is Millie Dawson and her companion, who’s eyes are currently trained on the checkered board, is her younger sister Muriel. The sisters introduced themselves months ago to Barry and Hunter, and often chat with them whenever it’s warmer out, being the stereotypical sweet old ladies one expects to find roaming the park following retirement.

Barry gives her a small wave which she readily returns. She doesn’t smile though. Just stares at Barry with an odd kind of resolution, as though waiting for him to give her the signal…

Worried now that he’s drawn the wrong kind of attention, Barry turns back to Zolomon—only to find the man already on his feet, tugging on a pair of black leather gloves. The material creaks gently as he pulls them taut over his fingers.

“I think we need a change of scenery,” Zolomon says, staring out across the lawn at the Dawson sisters. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

Barry does. And he doesn’t. If he could, he would run away right now and never look back. “Where are we going?”

“Coffee?” Zolomon offers, gesturing down the winding path. Barry knows where it leads: to the same coffee shop where he and Hunter finally agreed that they were, in fact, dating.

Barry’s heart sinks, but he says nothing.

Fortunately, Zolomon keeps a healthy distance between them as they walk. Doesn’t try to engage Barry in further conversation either, merely glances around them at the shrubbery with idle curiosity. Barry chalks his behaviour up to the fact that Zolomon knows Barry’s his captive audience, that he can speak with the younger speedster at his leisure.

Once they reach the coffee shop, Zolomon gestures him toward one of the small two-seater tables in the far corner by the window as he wanders over to the register to order them their drinks. Barry hasn’t told him what he wants to drink, or whether he wants anything to drink at all, but he wouldn’t be surprised if Zolomon had studied his habits all the way down to such fine detail in the time he’s been waiting to spring this trap.

Barry shrugs off his jacket and hangs it over the back of his chair before he settles down in his seat. There’s a small family of four sitting on the other side of the room, two little girls struggling to eat the large chocolate sprinkled donuts their parents bought them as their father tries to convince them to use a napkin. There’s also a young couple sitting in a booth in the opposite corner, the woman typing something up on her laptop while the man reads a book. Perhaps sensing Barry’s eyes on him, he glances up from his page and stares right back at Barry.

Barry’s stomach does a little flip. This place isn’t half as empty as he was hoping it would be.

The young man glances down at his book again—and then right back up, probably expecting Barry to look away. Realizing that Barry is still staring at him though, his brows furrow in concern.

God—he must look so desperate right now, Barry realizes, quickly averting his eyes. He almost wishes Zolomon had take them somewhere more private.

Zolomon returns in no time at all, a steaming cup of coffee in each hand. He settles into the chair across Barry and hands him his cup. “Decaf. Just the way you like it.”

“Astonishing,” Barry mutters as he takes a sip. He knows Zolomon probably drinks his as decaf too, because a speedster on caffeine is a disaster just waiting to happen.  

“I’m sorry,” Zolomon says, apropos of nothing.

“For what?” Barry asks—not because he _can’t_ think of anything Zolomon would need to apologize for, but because that list is practically endless.

“For how I behaved earlier,” his companion replies, taking a sip of his coffee. “Hard as you might find it to believe, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, Barry. I’m trying to break my old habits. It’s just a work in progress.”

“I didn’t realize you were capable of good manners,” Barry mutters, testing that statement.

Zolomon laughs into his cup as he takes another sip. “My whole ‘Jay Garrick’ skit wasn’t a complete lie. I truly enjoyed saving lives. And helping you.”

“No.” Barry shakes his head. “That was just a means to an end and you know it.”

“You can think whatever you like of me. In a couple of days, I know I’ll successfully convince you otherwise.”

Annoyed, Barry sits back in his seat. It takes a considerable amount of effort to keep his voice down as he says, “Zolomon, _look_ —I want you to release my boyfriend. _Today_. That’s the only way you’re going to get any leeway with me.”

“If only I could,” Zolomon sighs with an almost theatrical drop of his shoulders. “If I knew we could have a relatively civil conversation without having to worry about you doing something rash, he’d be a free man right now. But that isn’t the case.”

Barry glances across the room again. One of the little girls has icing in her hair, which her mother is trying to wipe out with a Kleenex. The young man with the book is still giving Barry the weird eye.

Finally, Barry turns back to Zolomon and says, “This is turning out to be a remarkably one-sided relationship.”

Zolomon nods his head slowly. “To be fair, you _do_ deserve something…How about a recorded message from my doppelganger?”

“No,” Barry replies. He already discussed this with his team. He needs _way_ more than a recording. “I want to speak with him in person.”

Zolomon gives him something of an incredulous look. “Please don’t pretend to be dense, Barry.”

“I’m not. You should know that a recording isn’t going to be good enough. You could just make one of yourself and try to pass it off as him.”

Slowly, Zolomon nods. “True…How about a face-to-face chat over the phone?”

It’s not quite what Barry wants, but it’s better than nothing. At least this way he’ll be able to assess what kind of condition his boyfriend is in.

Stiffly, Barry nods in return. “How soon can you arrange that?”

“Tomorrow, at the latest.”

“I said I wanted to speak with him _today_.”

The other man shrugs. “My team will need time to figure out how to accomplish that. He’s not exactly somewhere with the world’s greatest signal right now.”

So…Hunter was somewhere underground. Possibly. Barry would have to discuss that with Cisco and the others later.

Irritated, Barry nods again.

Zolomon grins. “Well, now that _you’ve_ been pacified, I think it’s my turn for a little treat. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Barry tenses. His mind really isn’t in the right place to meet anymore of Zolomon’s demands, but—ready or not—here they come.

Zolomon laughs suddenly, trying in a rather unsuccessful way to wipe the smile off his face. “Oh my god, you look like you think I want you to cut off your right arm... Do you _really_ think I would ask you to do something so horrible? I don’t _want_ you to feel uncomfortable, _remember_?”

“You kissed me yesterday without my consent,” is Barry’s blunt response. “That made me plenty uncomfortable.”

“And I apologize— _truly_. Yesterday was a small lapse in judgement. I just wanted to know if the chemistry between us was still there.”

Barry almost laughs at the absurdity of that statement. “ _What_ chemistry? We never _had_ any chemistry.”

Zolomon simply smiles at him, shaking his head. “That’s where you’re wrong…and that’s coincidentally also what I wanted to work on with you today.”

Barry takes a sip of his own coffee, unamused with Zolomon’s persistent delusion, but tired of arguing with him over the matter. If Zolomon wanted to do mental exercises with him today, so be it. Barry could handle that.

“I want you to think back to when I was still ‘Jay Garrick’ to you,” Zolomon instructs him. “I want you to think of three instances when you were happy to see me or have my help. You don’t have to tell me what they are. Just…think about them.”

Barry crosses one arm over his chest, hand wedged into the elbow of his other arm as he takes another sip of coffee. Pulling the cup away from his lips, he still keeps it close enough to his mouth to inhale the steam, thinking…

Barry knows it would be a complete lie to say he was _never_ happy to see ‘Jay’. While he didn’t immediately trust the man, he was grateful for his assistance against Light. Admittedly, he was also grateful the other man kept Harry in check the first couple of months they’d known the Earth 2 scientist. Barry didn’t like Harry right off the bat, both because he shared the same appearance as Eobard Thawne and because he was a complete dick to the team, and so it was Barry’s secret pleasure to see Zolomon getting such a rise out of the other man on a regular basis.

Barry didn’t know if there were three _precise_ instances that he was happy to have Zolomon around, because once he’d become an unofficial member of the team it was just nice to see another friendly face in the Cortex. Zolomon seemed to really get along well with Cisco, which was great since Cisco always enjoyed having someone close at hand to geek out with. Zolomon also made Caitlin happy once upon a time. At least until he crushed her heart in the worst way imaginable…

Frowning, Barry finally replaces his coffee cup on the table and says, “What about Caitlin?”

Zolomon blinks at him. Then he frowns in irritation. “Focus, Barry.”

“But Caitlin is an important part of our shared past. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Leaning back in his chair, Zolomon sighs and says, “Yes…but my relationship with Caitlin is a whole other matter. I was fascinated with her, but fate was quick to call me to heel over her. I’m sure she’s happy to be free of me.”

True…although this particular topic of conversation was worthy of further discussion. All the same, Barry could tell he was pushing his luck with his inquiries. Which was both a good thing and a bad thing. Bad because he didn’t want test the limits of Zolomon’s temper.

Good because he felt there was a hidden weakness somewhere to be found in there.

Satisfied to finally have a mark against the other man, Barry shrugs. “Fine. I’ve given it some thought. There are, in fact, at least three instances when I was happy to see you. So now what?”

“Nothing.”

Barry gives him a moment to elaborate, but Zolomon says nothing more. Confused, he asks, “That’s it?”

“For today. Baby steps, remember? This journey is simply one of reflection.”

Annoyed, Barry says, “Zolomon, I _really_ don’t have the patience to play games with you. You already have me at your mercy, so cut to the chase.”

“No,” Zolomon says softly. The solemnity in his tone gives Barry pause. “You seem to be under the impression that you’re the only one who’s forced to change here, but, as I’ve said before, I’m trying to change myself as well. I promise you, Barry Allen, I _want_ to meet you halfway...I just need time.”

“Halfway to what?” Barry asks, exhausted. Speedster that he is, he’s sick of running in circles. “What is it you really want?”

“I want what he has.”

“A Nottenebbia motorcycle?” Barry quips irritably.

“A partner.”

Barry tilts his head to one side and sighs. He doesn’t know what to think about his response. Zolomon looks utterly sincere, but it’s such a lofty request…

“You’re the Destroyer of Worlds,” Barry replies wearily. “The so-called ‘Father of All Monsters’. I won’t help you hurt innocent people.”

“And I would never ask you to,” Zolomon replies. He opens his mouth to say something else, but then a soft little trill drifts up to them from under the table.

Zolomon pushes his chair back a little and reaches under the table, revealing a small mobile phone. The tape someone used to secure it there is still stuck to the sides.

“That’s odd,” Barry says bluntly.

“I didn’t want to risk ruining it earlier.”

Barry scowls at him in confusion. Then realization finally dawns on him as he whips out his own phone and tries to turn it on. The battery is still working, but the screen is a mess of colourful lines.

Hunter obviously fried much more than just Barry’s mic.

“This does _not_ endear me to you…” Barry mutters.

“I’ll buy you a new one if you want,” Hunter offers idly as he replies to his secret text. He keeps his eyes glued to the screen of his phone until he gets a response. “Tomorrow evening.”

“What?” Barry asks, completely baffled.

“Dinner,” Zolomon replies. “And your chat with my doppelganger.”

“Why not tomorrow morning?”

“I’m just telling you what they told me,” the other man chuckles, turning his phone around to show Barry the screen. It reads:

**G: Status?**

**User: Video chat over phone between doppelganger and Barry – how soon?**

**G: 18:00 tomorrow.**

Barry frowns in frustration but he knows there’s nothing he can do to improve the situation. “Fine. I’ll meet you at six.”

“No. Five o’clock.”

Sighing, Barry acquiesces with a small nod of his head.

“I’ll meet you in the park. Same spot as today.”

Again, he nods. Then with a huff he asks, “Is that Greene?”

Zolomon nods.

In a fit of unbridled rage, Barry mutters. “Tell him that if any harm comes to my boyfriend, I’ll break every bone in his body.”

Intrigued, Zolomon arches an eyebrow at him. “ _Vicious…_ I like it. Does the same warning go for me too?”

“No. I’ll do _much_ worse to you…”

“Well, you’re always welcome to exercise your frustrations out on me, Barry.”

“If that’s an offer for sex, I don’t think you need me to tell you where to stuff it.”

Zolomon gives him a knowing smile and then slips his phone into his jacket pocket. “I would love to stay and chat, but I can already tell you’re having a hard time keeping focus. Have a good night, beautiful. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Silently, Barry watches the other man as he rises from his seat and walks briskly toward the door. It takes a great deal of effort to resist the urge to follow him, knowing Zolomon will only lead him on a merry chase if he thinks Barry is trying to tail him.

Sure enough, once he’s outside, Zolomon turns around to wink at Barry through the front window of the coffee shop and then disappears in a streak of blue lightning at a speed that’s still much faster than anything Barry could currently hope to achieve.

Blessedly alone again, Barry exhales slowly between his lips and holds his phone up for further inspection…

There’s no way in hell he’s going to be able to salvage this.

~***~

_Hunter knows he’s dreaming._

_Hunter knows he’s dreaming but it’s an almost nebulous thought, one that keeps shimmering in and out of focus simply because he doesn’t **want** it to be a dream. He’s happy here in the sanctuary of his mind, kissing Barry Allen for all his worth, so why should he leave?_

_“Stop overthinking everything,” Barry commands between one fevered kiss and the next. He capitulates to Hunter’s probing tongue so easily, squirming enticingly on their shared bed, blessedly naked and responsive to Hunter’s touch. Hunter doesn’t know how long they’ve been making out, but he’s more than ready to move things along to the main attraction._

_With herculean effort, Hunter pulls his mouth away from Barry, his lower lip momentarily trapped gently between Barry’s teeth. Breathlessly, he asks, “What do you want, beautiful?”_

_“This,” Barry chuckles, worming his hand down between them to unbutton Hunter’s jeans and yank down the zipper. Hunter’s not wearing anything underneath, easing the way for Barry to slip him out, hard and heavy and ready to go._

_Hunter kisses the corner of Barry’s mouth and then glances down between them. He freezes._

_These aren’t his clothes._

_“Wait,” Hunter says, panicking. He’s still in the black leather suit, the one belonging to his doppelganger. “I need to get undressed.”_

_“Later,” Barry laughs, stroking him with one hand. “Try it fully clothed for once. Could be fun.”_

_Despite the sudden awkwardness of the situation, Hunter finds himself rolling his hips into Barry’s hand. “But…it’s ‘his’ suit.”_

_Barry gives him a quizzical look. “Whose?”_

_“You know…Zoom’s?”_

_Barry’s quizzical look doesn’t go away, but he keeps stroking Hunter. “Okay, well…as long as you keep your gloves off, I don’t care what you do. Just grab the lube and get on with it already.”_

_This…this can’t be his Barry. There’s no way in hell his boyfriend would be comfortable with Hunter wearing his doppelganger’s suit in the bedroom._

_Passion waning, Hunter brushes Barry’s hand away and sits back on his haunches._

_Confused, Barry folds his left arm under his head and frowns. “What’s wrong?”_

_“Who are you?”_

_“I’m…me?”_

_“…I need to go.”_

_“Please don’t,” Barry says frantically, pushing himself up onto his elbows so he can grab Hunter by the collar of his leather jacket and pull him back down for a kiss. “It’s just your motorcycle gear. I don’t see what all the fuss is about.”_

_Confused, Hunter glances back down his body again and, oh, yeah…looks like he was worried for nothing after all._

_Relieved, Hunter crawls over his boyfriend to grab the bottle of lube off the bedside table and settles back into their familiar dance. As reality wavers in and out of focus, he regains consciousness lying the opposite way down the bed. Barry is beneath him, legs hooked high around Hunter’s waist and his head hanging back over the foot of the bed. Hunter thrusts between his lovely thighs with mechanical ease and then glances up at a mirror he doesn’t quite remember installing in their bedroom. It gives him a good view of the blissed out look on Barry’s face, eyes screwed shut in pleasure as Hunter drives into him._

_It also gives Hunter a good view of his suit._

_It’s not the motorcycle one._

_He panics and pulls up short on the next thrust. Barry opens his eyes at the sensation, staring at Hunter’s reflection in the mirror. He flashes Hunter a wicked little grin through the glass and then lifts head to stare at him directly, hooking one hand behind Hunter’s neck to pull him down for a kiss._

_Hunter’s sense of being wavers. It’s an honest struggle to focus on the laughter in Barry’s eyes when his boyfriend relinquishes his hold and says, “I like you much better this way.”_

And then he wakes.

Once again, he finds himself lying on the cold hard ground, stretched out on his right side, facing the stone wall. Therefore, the first thing he sees when he regains consciousness is the air mattress pushed up against the wall and the small pile of sheets stacked on top of it.

None of that was here when he fell asleep earlier—assuming, of course, he ‘fell asleep’ as opposed to being drugged, because there’s no way in hell he would’ve slept through someone dragging a mattress into his cell.

Baffled, Hunter grabs his glasses off the ground and slips them on, blinking at the mattress groggily as he sits up. There’s also a bucket and a couple plastic bottles of water situated in the far corner, yet another delightful addition to his prison.

 _“If you behave…”_ someone says through the overhead speaker, _“…we’ll let you out for a shower and a shave tonight.”_

Hunter turns toward the front glass panel of his cell to find Benjamin sitting in a chair on the other side, arms and legs crossed, looking horribly exhausted. Behind him, a few men in work overalls are huddled around one of the tables, sorting through blueprints.

Hunter wonders if his doppelganger intends for him to guess what the hell his whole operation is up to.

“Are you feeding me based on a reward system too?” Hunter mutters, stomach roiling with hunger. He’s thirsty too, so he pushes himself up onto his feet and wanders across the cell to pick up one of the two water bottles. Thanks to the low temperature of the room, the water is blessedly cool against his parched tongue.

 _“We’re not going to starve you,”_ Benjamin sighs, rubbing his eyes. _“Someone will come by in the next hour or so to give you a sandwich. I promise.”_

Hunter takes another swig of water before screwing the cap back on the bottle and tossing it onto the mattress. He can guess what the bucket is for, but thankfully he doesn’t need to use it at the moment. “Were you watching me sleep?”

The other man shrugs. _“I just do as I’m told.”_

“So if they ask you to dance, you’ll do that without question too?”

Benjamin winks at him. _“I love to dance.”_

Hunter rubs the back of his neck irritably. He supposes it shouldn’t come to him as a surprise that he would be put under constant supervision.

Sighing, he asks, “What is it you do on your world? Professionally, I mean. Or are you a mercenary there as well?”

 _“I’m not a merc,”_ Benjamin replies, stretching out his legs. _“Just a common thief.”_

“You like to steal art?”

Benjamin laughs at the inside joke. _“How’d you know?”_

“Lucky guess,” Hunter mutters. “And I’m guessing you’re also a metahuman, otherwise I can’t see why Zoom would waste his time on you.” When Benjamin doesn’t say anything to deny that claim, Hunter presses for more information: “What exactly can you do?”

 _“Something truly fantastic,”_ Benjamin chuckles, _“but I think that’s enough for today’s session. I need a little shut eye.”_

As the other man rises from his seat, Hunter steps up to the glass. “I want to speak with Barry.”

Benjamin gives him a queer look. _“Dude, I just work here. I can’t help you with that”_

“Then pass the message along to your boss.”

_“I will, but nothing’s going to come of your request unless your boyfriend cooperates.”_

Hunter sighs.

Benjamin winks at him again, brushing off the front of his trousers before turning away. He grabs the back of his chair and drags it toward one of the desks lining the far wall and then makes his way toward the door. But he’s stopped short by the sudden appearance of Greene as the other man ducks into the room.

Through the overhead speaker, Hunter can faintly hear the other man say, _“Where are you going?”_

Benjamin, coy confidence melting away into pure exhaustion, gives Greene an irritated look and says, _“I’ve been going for two days straight already. I **need** to sleep.”_

_“Fine, but we’ll be needing your assistance again tonight. You’ve got nine hours.”_

Benjamin’s shoulders slump with relief. He reaches out for the door. _“Thank god.”_

 _“Hold on a minute,”_ Greene replies, brushing his hand away as he himself pulls the door back open, staring out expectantly into the hallway.

Soon enough two armed men appear, half-dragging, half-herding a third man into the room between them. The poor fellow is dressed in white short-sleeved scrubs, struggling feebly against his captors in something of a stupor, a large bruise visible on his left temple just under the shadow of his bangs.

Stunned at the sight of him, Hunter presses his hands up against the glass. “Barry!”

His boyfriend lifts his head feebly to stare at Hunter, eyes narrowed in confusion as the two armed men drag him over to the open cell on Hunter’s right.

It’s then that Hunter realizes the adjacent cell also contains a few new supplies: a mattress, bucket, and a couple of water bottles. The sheets have already been pulled over the mattress, probably in preparation of dumping the poor boy there, which is exactly what the two men do. Barry struggles to get back up, but one of the men kneels beside him and pushes him back down again, yanking Barry’s left arm out to one side.

 _“Careful,”_ someone says outside the glass. It’s an older woman somewhere her sixties, scrutinizing the empty needle in her hand as she steps into the cell.

Hunter moves over to the adjourning glass panel and pounds on it with his fist. He gives the woman quite the start. “Get away from him!”

 _“Shut up,”_ Greene mutters. _“She’s just taking a blood sample.”_

Simple as that might sound, Hunter doesn’t understand the sudden turn of events. He didn’t think Zoom was going to drag Barry here. At least not until he’d exhausted every other avenue of serenading the poor boy.

Hunter watches helplessly as the woman kneels beside Barry and buries the needle in the crook of his arm as the other man keeps him pinned. Barry protests weakly, but the fight has gone out of him by now. He lies limply on the mattress for the minute that it takes the woman to collect her sample, and doesn’t move at all when both she and the armed man retreat from the cell.

Greene closes the door to Barry’s prison and shares one of his sly smiles with Hunter. _“Enjoy the company.”_

“Asshole,” Hunter mutters.

Greene laughs at him as he follows the woman out of the room. Benjamin gives Barry a long, thoughtful look before slipping out into the hallway.

Feeling defeated, Hunter taps against the glass partition. Hesitantly, he says, “Barry?”

Barry rolls his head to one side. He eyes Hunter curiously, as though seeing him for the first time, and then lethargically asks, _“Do I know you?”_

“What?” Hunter mumbles, confused. “It’s me, babe. It’s Hunter.”

 _“This is gonna sound confusing,”_ Barry replies, slurring slightly, _“but I was dragged through a portal.”_

“…Oh,” Hunter says.

 _Oh_.

This whole situation suddenly makes a hell of a lot more sense.

“You’re not from this Earth, are you?”

His boyfriend’s doppelganger smiles softly. He looks like he’s about to pass out. Probably because he was drugged on top of taking a fist to face. _“I wish I could see you,”_ he mumbles curiously.

Hunter frowns in concern. “You can’t see me?”

 _“They took my glasses,”_ this Barry sighs sadly. He then pinches the front of his shirt, frowning at the material. _“And my clothes…They said they would give my frames back later.”_

“I’m sorry,” Hunter replies. “Do you happen to know why they kidnapped you?”

Barry shakes his head slowly. _“They took me off the train. I was going to work. Today…today is kind of hazy_.”

So, they’ve had the poor kid for a while yet. Hunter’s not sure what they’ve been doing to him in the meantime, but he doesn’t imagine it’s anything good.

 _“How do you know me?”_ Barry asks quietly, almost too softly to hear.

“I’m…” Hunter pauses a moment to clear his throat. “I’m dating your doppelganger.”

Barry smiles again. _“He’s so nice…He’ll save us. He’s the Flash, you know.”_

“I know.”

 _“Good,”_ Barry murmurs as he finally closes his eyes. _“That’s good…”_

Hunter leans into the glass with his right shoulder, wondering it he should try to keep the kid awake. But considering the effort Zoom and his men put into getting the poor boy here, Hunter assumes he’ll be safe for now.

He hopes.

Giving his slumbering companion one last look, Hunter wanders over to his mattress and drags it over to the glass partition between their two cells. Then he lies down and tries to relax. He knows he’s limited in what he can do for his boyfriend while he’s trapped in here, but if he’s smart, he’s sure he can figure out a way to help _this_ Barry in the long run.

Tired, he closes his eyes again and tries to relax.

Idly, he wonders if Cisco’s been keeping track of all the Earth 1 portals…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TLDR: Zoom still doesn't know how to human properly. He's a classic privileged brat. Barry should smack him but he won't because he's the better man. Hunter, meanwhile, makes a new friend. All is not well in Central City.


	4. Come away with me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ladyofpride: I just wanted to apologize for the extremely long hiatus. Erik was polite enough to put this story on the back burner while I studied for my Candidacy Exam. It won't take this long to post the next chapter, I promise.
> 
> theoneandonlyzoom: WELCOME BACK, MY VICTIMS!!! In case you can't remember what's happened so far in the story and don't have the energy to re-read the previous chapters, I've supplied you with a small recap: Zoom is alive and kicking, having kidnapped Hunter and stashed him away in exchange for a little 'good behavior' on Barry's part. Barry doesn't quite know what Zoom wants yet, only that Greene (a merc), Benjamin Coleman (the metahuman doppelganger of one of Hunter's high school chums), and some shady people from the government want Zoom's help with some personal project of theirs. Meanwhile, the rest of Team Flash is trying to decipher a list of metahumans who've been given odd psuedonyms in the hopes of figuring out who this 'Echidna' person Zoom's army is so desperately trying to get their hands on. Additionally, Earth-2 Barry Allen has just recently been abducted for as of yet unknown reasons...

_Bartholomew Henry Allen is a thing of beauty. When he smiles, the very space around him glows._

_But there’s something in this smile that isn’t quite bright or heart-warming._

_“Come on,” Barry whispers, breath ghosting against Hunter’s lips. His lover’s arms are hooked around Hunter’s neck, body pressed flush against his chest. They fit perfectly together. “To the end of the park and back again. If you win, you can do whatever you want to me.”_

_“I can already do whatever I want to you,” is Hunter’s automatic response. Uncharacteristic, to a degree, but the way he steals a kiss isn’t too far from his usual behaviour. Barry’s mouth is warm and inviting. The taste of him is indescribable. “I can’t run that fast, beautiful.”_

_Barry’s laugh of disbelief is sharp and unexpected. “You can stop pretending.”_

_Even without moving, Hunter senses his world leaning suddenly to the left. Not by much. Just enough to make him feel uneasy. “Stop pretending what?”_

_“That you’re The Other.”_

_“The other what?”_

_“Capital ‘O’,” Barry chuckles, smiling that beatific smile, the one that melts the very marrow of his bones. It’s the smile he wakes up to each day; it’s the smile he wants to wake up to forever. It's just you, me, and Speed Force—two speedsters and a hell of a lot of energy to burn off between us. So, let’s burn it, yeah? The same way we burn everything…”_

_Hunter’s not a speedster, but he still senses that unholy energy thrumming through his lover. Hunter feels it frizzling against the skin of his neck where Barry’s looped his arms. He can feel it on his lips too when Barry kisses him again, a bolt of lightning that rattles its way through his teeth and up into his brain. It’s intoxicating._

_“Better?” Barry asks, as though he’s just delivered Hunter his medicine._

_Dazed, Hunter nods._

_“You taught me that trick,” Barry says. “You taught me that we’re two livewires dancing in the dark. You electrify me and I electrify you in return. That’s the way it should always be.”_

_“Yes,” Hunter gasps, although he doesn’t quite know what he’s agreeing to. He’s too hot to care. His leathers don’t breathe very well._

_“You want to ‘educate’ me a little more?” Barry chuckles. He throws his head back, staring up at the stars, offering his pale throat to Hunter like a sacrifice._

_They’re in the park. It’s dark and lonely but for the two of them. A gentle breeze rustles the leaves in the trees, but Hunter is only half aware of his surroundings. He can only feel Barry, clad in his red leather suit, body trembling against Hunter as he laughs into the night._

_He continues to laugh as Hunter drags him to the ground, yanking down the zipper of his lover’s jacket. It won’t take long to get him naked. It won’t take long to sink into him either. Only Barry needs to accommodate them here. Only Barry needs to lie there and surrender to the Speed Force, simultaneously opening his body and closing the circuit between them and **It**. He’s the prime, after all. He’s the chosen one. _

_He’s the favorite child._

_Through him, Hunter controls all. Through him, he’s—_

—roused by a solid _thump_.

Hunter doesn’t realize he’s been returned to the waking world immediately. His mind is still a little foggy, a mess of pseudo-colours and false sensations, weighted down by sleep. His heart is racing though, being the only part of him that’s truly awake right now.

The first thing he’s consciously aware of is Barry’s doppelganger standing in the cell beside him, separated from Hunter by a thick pane of glass. The young man is staring down at him with an intensity that is truly unsettling, his right fist resting against the partition between them.

Hunter supposes his neighbor was the source of the mysterious _thump_.

“What?” Hunter asks, but already he’s distracted by an unusual thought. Whatever he was dreaming about, it wasn’t right. He didn’t feel like himself and Barry sure as hell wasn’t normally that unhinged. There was something decidedly manic in his boyfriend behavior, as though something had tipped him over the edge and into a blazing downward spiral.

Hunter adjusts his glasses and pushes himself up onto his elbows. He feels a little grimy because he hasn’t showered in a over day, a minor pet peeve of his. He feels grimy from the dream too, unable to shake the sensation that someone climbed inside his brain and planted it there.

For that bizarre reason alone, he isn’t _entirely_ surprised to see Benjamin sitting in front of his cell again, legs crossed, glaring at Barry.

Irritably, Benjamin says, _“I don’t believe we’ve met.”_

Barry pointedly avoids looking directly at the other man, but he does answer him: _“I work for the CCPD. I know who you are and what you’re capable of.”_

Benjamin is silent for a long moment. Hunter turns his head to glance at Benjamin again, but Barry thumps his hand against the glass to stop him. _“ **Don’t** look him in the eye. All it takes is a second.”_

“A second to do what?”

 _“To plant a false memory,”_ Barry replies. _“Or take one.”_

 _“Hey now—”_ Benjamin tries to interject.

 _“He’s a thief on my Earth._ _Steals something and forces the owner to forget they ever had it. Makes it difficult to find witnesses for his work.”_

 _“I’ve never done undo harm to anyone,”_ Benjamin mutters. In the corner of Hunter’s eyes, he can see the man adjusting his posture in his seat. _“In fact, you could almost argue that my work is benign. A person can’t miss something if they don’t remember ever having it.”_

 _“His abilities aren’t limited to eye contact,”_ Barry continues undeterred, ignoring the other man’s input completely. _“He only needs to look you in the eye if you’re awake; aware. When you’re asleep, he’s unstoppable.”_

This time, it’s Benjamin who jumps up from his seat and strikes the glass with his fist. Oddly enough though, his voice doesn’t sound sharp. Almost weaker, rather, under the gentle crackle of the overhead speaker _“Kid, **stop**. Please… You’re not helping anyone.”_

“We can easily take turns sleeping,” Hunter suggests, keeping his eyes locked on Barry. With everything that’s been happening in his life, there isn’t a doubt in his mind that what this kid is saying is true. There seems to be a metahuman for everything nowadays, including mental manipulation. “I don’t know what you want, Ben, but I’m not too eager to revisit your little nightmare.”

 _“I’m just doing what he tells me to,”_ Benjamin says softly. Not for the first time, Hunter wonders if the man really wants to be here. _“If you don’t comply, either Greene or Dr. Sloan will tranquilize you. I can erase this whole conversation from your memories.”_

“So be it,” Hunter mutters.

Benjamin takes a deep, slow breath. _“…Zoom’s got us working on a tight schedule. You’re not going to win. He’s got this all planned out.”_

“Good for him.”

Another sigh, but this time Benjamin doesn’t argue. There’s the faint screech of metal against stone as he drags his chair away from the cells and leans it against the far wall next to an equipment rack. Defeated, he leaves the room.

Alone at last, Hunter clears his throat and says, “Thank you. I was having one hell of a dream.”

 _“No problem.”_ Barry sighs. Carefully then, he lies back down on his mattress, no doubt still groggy from the sedative they gave him earlier. _“What were you dreaming about, if you don’t mind my asking?”_

Heat rises in Hunter’s cheeks. Sagely, Hunter decides to go with a vague explanation. “I was dreaming of my boyfriend. We…we weren’t acting like our usual selves.”

_“Then how were you acting?”_

“Like we were powerful…Unhinged. It was frightening. And exhilarating. I felt as though I could control the whole multiverse through him.”

 _“Sounds a bit crazy,”_ Barry agrees, folding his hands behind his head. Neither one of them has a pillow. _“But so is the fact that Zoom is still alive. I thought he was dead.”_

“You and me both.”

_“I guess the big question is, why would he want **you** to feel powerful? The last time your boyfriend was on my Earth, Zoom put him in a cage just like this one. Looked to me like he wanted to be the one in control of my doppelganger.”_

“He wanted to steal Barry’s speed then. Now, I think he wants to use Barry for something else.”

_“But how does he hope to control someone as powerful as Barry?”_

_‘I think he’s hoping through his dick,’_ Hunter thinks bitterly. Aloud, he says, “Blackmail, perhaps. He’s fond of that. Or maybe through my good friend Ben. Playing mind games is right up Zoom’s alley, or so I’ve been told.”

Barry hums thoughtfully in agreement before trailing off. There’s a poignant pause before he continues. _“Why do you think I’m here? I literally have nothing to bring to the table.”_

“I don’t know,” Hunter replies, puzzled. It does seem odd that Barry’s doppelganger would be selected as a prisoner. “What do you remember of your abduction?”

_“Not much, I’m afraid. My wife was working late the night before so she was still sleeping when I left the house for my shift. I hopped on the train, like I usually do, a group of men in black fatigues jumped me as soon as I got off. I vaguely remember hitting someone…They hit back. Some blond guy said I was going to have a ‘real good time’ with them.”_

“Sounds like Greene,” Hunter mutters. That goddamn asshole. “He’s got that kind of vibe. If you ask me, I think he’s also got a massive hard-on for his boss.”

Barry snorts out a small laugh. _“You know, they’re probably listening to us right now…”_

Hunter glances up at the camera in the corner of his cell. A tiny red light flickers below the lens, mocking him. “We’ve already pissed off one of their guys today. What’s one more?”

_“You shouldn’t try to piss off your captors. I’m pretty sure that’s the first lesson of How to Survive a Hostage Situation 101.”_

“Zoom’s not your run-of-the-mill captor, and I don’t think any of his men are either.” He remembers suddenly the first time he met Greene, when the man side-blinded their truck and tried to kill O’Shaughnessy. He remembers how certain the man was that Zoom would return once he had Barry in his possession.

And, oh, how right Green turned out to be…

Something cold and foreign and bitter curls in the pit of his stomach.

 _“I guess you’re right,”_ Barry sighs. “ _The police on my world never found an effective strategy for dealing with Zoom. It really does take a speedster to take down a speedster.”_

Hunter knows that to be the sad truth. As much as he would love to be the one to put their trouble with Zoom to rest, he knows doesn’t have the ability. Even Harry, who’d focused every ounce of his terrifying intelligence on the speedster’s demise, turned out to be no match for his old foe.

As a mere mortal, Hunter has no real hand in this game either.

Hunter tries to swallow down the bile at the back of his throat. He needs to keep a level head here. “Was Zoom’s identity ever revealed to the public on your world?” he asks, more so to fill the silence than anything.

Barry, the poor kid, yawns. _“No…There was an announcement that he was dead, but that’s it. The crime rate is declining now, so I don’t think anyone cares how his reign was brought to an end.”_

“He’s my doppelganger,” Hunter says quietly. He feels it’s somehow important the kid knows this, even if only to dampen the shock of seeing Zoom without his mask on for the first time. “On your world, he witnessed the death of his mother at his father’s hand. He grew up alone and unloved in an orphanage.”

There’s a pause before Barry says, _“Are you suggesting he deserves our sympathy?”_

Hunter thinks about the camera in the corner with its blinking red light and the many ways in which Zoom’s spied on Hunter and his boyfriend, obsessively, for god only knows how long. Then he says, “No. I’m saying he’s completely unhinged. He doesn’t know love and he doesn’t know mercy, so don’t expect there to be any genuine feelings behind the emotions he displays.”

Quietly, Barry says, _“You sound like you know him well.”_

“Only through my Barry,” he sighs. He’ll never forget the look in his boyfriend’s eyes the first time he thought Zoom had returned, the indescribable pain simmering beneath the surface of his fear, the anguish written in every line of his lovely face.

 _“Well, I do trust my doppelganger…”_ Barry concedes. Hunter wonders for a moment if the poor boy could conceivably believe that a man like Zoom was ever deserving of forgiveness.

“It’s important that you don’t let him trick you,” Hunter replies, hoping to hammer that lesson home. “Whatever it is he wants from you, it _won’t_ be for a good cause.”

 _“I know that_ … _”_

They fall silent again. Hunter’s heart thuds heavily inside his chest. He’s not expecting anything good to come of this whole affair. Even if his Barry succeeds in taking Zoom down for good, he has a feeling there will be enough loses on their side to sour the victory.

Thankfully, he isn’t given much time to brood. The door on the other side of the room swings open and two armed men saunter in, making their way toward Hunter’s cage. Stony faced and bored, one of them says, _“I’m going to escort you to the showers. I think it goes without saying that any kind of retaliation will result in immediate consequences—”_ The man looks pointedly at Barry _“—for your neighbor. Do you understand?”_

Hunter half wonders if they’ve actually come to drag him off somewhere for a beating, but there’s nothing he can do to defend themselves if that’s the real aim of the game. Rising from his mattress, he nods.

_“Good. Now turn around and put your hands behind your back. I’ll cuff you and lead you out. Any trouble and we’ll electrify your friend’s cell. Once you get back, he’ll get a chance to go through the same process.”_

Barry doesn’t move from his spot on his mattress, just eyes the glass partition between them warily.

Sighing, Hunter follows their instructions, holding his hands out behind his back as the cell door swings open. The man enters and snaps a cold pair of handcuffs around his wrists, then curls his hand around Hunter’s right forearm to guide him out of the room. The other guard follows close behind.

Hunter’s led out into a long dark hallway, illuminated only by a few work lights hanging lowly overhead, casting eerie shadows against the walls. It’s colder out here than it is inside his cells, and it smells damp, as though they’re somewhere far underground.

There’s also an indescribable sound that swells as they near the end of the hall, a kind of humming and grinding noise like heavy machinery, punctuated now and again by a high-pitched buzz, as though there’s a small factory just on the other side of the far door.

For the most part, there is. Once they pass through the door, Hunter sees that they’re constructing a ring of sorts about thirty feet in diameter standing completely upright in the middle of the large room. In the center of it is a platform, below which two men are welding something together. There’s another three men huddled together just off to the right, carefully wiring another piece of equipment together. All around them around are computer monitors and memory banks and people in starchy white lab coats running to and fro in a mad attempt to complete their work.

It looks as though Ben wasn’t lying about that tight schedule.

“What is this?” Hunter asks.

“NASA’s ground control,” his primary guard grumbles. “Keep walking.”

Hunter does, allowing them to guide him through another door to the left. It leads nowhere exciting. Just another long, damp hallway.

Midway down, the guard pulls him up short and pushes him into another room. Inside is a row of sinks to the left and a row of individual stalls to the right. At the far end is a communal shower with about five shower heads arranged in a ring, sans the curtains.

The second guard leans back against the wall beside the door as the other uncuffs Hunter. “You’ve got twenty minutes. If you make it quick and behave yourself, we’ll let you shave.”

“Is there a reason you guys are so ‘accommodating’ tonight or am I expected to believe your boss really has turned a new leaf?”

“He says we’re supposed to keep you in good health,” the man grumbles, “and to keep you presentable for tonight.”

“What’s tonight?”

“A little chat with your boyfriend.”

Hunter can’t help but feel a small thrill of excitement at the prospect of talking to Barry again. It’s almost enough to make him forget the small audience he has for his shower.

He gives his guards a weird look. “You’re not going to watch, are you?”

“You think we have a choice?”

Judging by the guy’s withering look, Hunter’s guessing that’s a no.

Irritated, he yanks his shirt up over his head and steps forward.

He hopes to god his boyfriend’s doppelganger doesn’t freak out when it’s his turn for the showers.

~***~

_Barry’s missed him something fierce._

_It feels as though they’ve spent ages apart. Long enough that there’s a quality of newness to their lovemaking. Barry knows this man, but at the same time it’s as though he’s never felt him before. All the same, Hunter moves with practiced ease between Barry’s legs. Solid but gentle. The muscles of his back ripple beneath Barry’s hands._

_He feels so good._

_“Beautiful,” Hunter mumbles, burying his face in Barry’s neck. His teeth drag against Barry’s skin, but he doesn’t bite. Thrusts harder instead; moves deeper. “Do you know how perfect you are?”_

_“I’m hardly perfect,” Barry chuckles._

_“Eye of the beholder,” Hunter quips._

_“I thought it was our flaws that made us beautiful?”_

_“Is that what you call them?” Hunter laughs. The laugh dwindles into a moan. His hips work faster, losing their rhythm as he reaches orgasm. Barry doesn’t follow suit. He just feels good. No climax; no fall. Just Hunter working his pleasure through him._

_Hunter rests against and within him for a long moment. When he finally shifts, Barry unhooks his legs from his lover’s hips and curls up in the rumpled sheets as Hunter rises from the cot. For some reason, they’re in a small med bay on one of the upper floors of S.T.A.R. Labs, the curtains pulled shut against the night sky. Barry usually only crashes here if he’s too hungry to run home._

_He pulls the sheets up over his cooling body. He’s sticky and wet but too sore to move for the moment. Instead, he just lies there and glances around the room, eyeing the row of empty cots beside him stripped bare, their clothes gathered in a crumpled heap on the nearest mattress. He really can’t remember the last time he was up here._

_Beside the bed, Hunter shuffles into his jeans. He’s built like Adonis. Barry drinks him in with his eyes._

_Languidly, Barry smiles and stretches. The motion pull the sheets down to his hips. He’s still sore, but he knows the feeling will pass. “Leaving so soon? You know how short my refractory period is…”_

_Hunter pulls his jeans the rest of the way up, but he doesn’t touch the zipper just yet, hesitating. He rarely, if ever, can pass up an offer for more sex. “You think you can still handle me?”_

_“Always.”_

_“Even with your back?”_

_For the second time that evening, Barry feels just a hint of confusion. He has no idea what his back has to do with anything. “What about it?”_

_“Technically, we shouldn’t have done it once already so soon. You’re still healing aren’t you?”_

_Barry stretches out again, more tentatively this time. Nothing **seems** off… “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”_

_Hunter frowns ands smiles in polite kind of confusion. “How do you forget a thing like breaking your back?”_

_Barry blinks at him. “I haven’t broken it since Zoom.”_

_“But isn’t it **still** broken from Zoom?”_

_“No, it’s…” Barry’s response trails off as tries to piece together this mystery. He feels nauseated all of a sudden, like he’s turned back the clock without meaning to. But he promised himself he wouldn’t do that again—he couldn’t **afford** to do that again, not with everything being almost exactly as it was before… _

_Lost as he is in thought, he doesn’t notice Hunter’s moved until the man is crawling back under the sheets with Barry, stretching out over him. His every instinct is screaming at Barry to run._

_But he has to know for sure…_

_Hunter ducks his head to kiss Barry. Just a quick brush of the lips. “You alright?”_

_Barry swallows. “Jay?”_

_Concerned, Hunter brushes a stray hair from Barry’s forehead. “Yes?”_

_Internally, Barry screams._

_Then he lashes out—_

“ _Jesus_ , Barry! It’s just me!”

Gasping, Barry releases the death grip he has on his assailant. Cisco whips his arm out of reach as soon as it’s free, eyeing Barry like a wild beast. His fear quickly turns to confusion as his gaze lands on Barry’s lap. “Man, I don’t want to know what you’ve been dreaming about…”

Embarrassed, Barry tugs his thin cotton blanket up into a heap over his erection. “I’m sorry. I was…it was a nightmare.”

“No explanation necessary,” Cisco replies, clearing his throat awkwardly. “I’m glad you got a little shuteye, really, but it’s almost time for your ‘date’ so we should probably pow-wow in the Cortex soon-ish, you know?”

Mutely Barry nods, watching as his friend abruptly pivots on his heel and dashes out of the room.

Barry had crashed on Harry’s old cot in the hopes that a little sleep would clear his mind. Obviously, he was wrong. Not only is he now questioning his history with one of the greatest villains of the century, but he feels groggier than he did before the nap.

Shaking his head, Barry kicks the blanket off and snatches his bag of spare clothes off the floor beside the bed. Then he marches off to the nearest employee lounge for a nice, long, _cold_ shower.

The shower does a good job of stamping down his arousal but it does nothing to cure him of his treacherous thoughts. He and Zolomon were never intimate before Barry discovered the truth behind Zoom and ‘Jay Garrick’. At least, not in the original timeline—but even if something as drastic as that had been changed in _this_ timeline, Barry’s certain he’d still have some memory of it.

…Wouldn’t he?

To be honest, he’s turned back the clock so many times before, he’s beginning to have trouble telling the different timelines apart. Maybe this was why Zoom was fascinated with him now. Perhaps it’s the quirk of this timeline, the debt to be paid—a return to normalcy for everyone else in his life in exchange for his own personal torment at the hands of his nemesis.

But…that _can’t_ be true. Zolomon implied he knew Barry was changing the timeline more than he safely could in their last conversation. He’s probably been hiding away on another Earth all this time, if for no other reason than to avoid the wraiths Barry sometimes attracts with his meddling. There’s no real history between them.

There couldn’t be.

The possibility of it still haunts him though as he dries himself off and slips on his dress shirt and slacks. He opted for a semi-formal look, for no other reason than he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself from any innocent bystanders this evening. He just wants to keep Zoom occupied long enough to chat with his boyfriend.

Once dressed, he heads on down to the Cortex for Cisco’s brainstorming session, Everyone is accounted for—the West family, the Wells family, Caitlin, Cisco, and Hartley, all hard at work on one aspect of their operation or another.

Hartley is the first to spot Barry, spinning around in his seat at the main console to wave a small, square piece of paper in Barry’s face. At least, it looks like a piece of paper at first glance. It’s actually a piece of translucent plastic wrapped around a very tiny black…dot.

“Tracker,” Hartley explains. “If you plant this on Zoom, we can figure out where he’s hiding.”

Barry scrutinizes the small device and then hands it back, skeptical of its efficiency. “What if he fries it, like he did with the microphone?”

“He didn’t fry the mic,” Hartley replies, smiling triumphantly. He turns back around in his chair, types something into his computer, and then hits _Play_ on the soundtrack that pops up on his screen: “… _Halfway to what? What is it you really want?_ — _I want what he wants—A Nottenebbia motorcycle?—A partner—_ ”

“It survived his little EMP blast?” Barry asks in disbelief.

“I packed two mics into your cellphone earlier—a regular one to go on the fritz if he discovered it and one I designed myself. If he tries that stupid trick again, he won’t be very successful.”

“But is this really such a good idea?” Caitlin interjects, standing with her left hip against the console, arms crossed. She looks like she’s running low on caffeine. And patience. “He knew Barry was going to bring a mic to their last meeting. He’ll be expecting you to plant a tracker on him sooner or later.”

Cisco squints in disagreement, leaning over in his seat to pluck the tracker from Hartley’s hands. “I don’t know. This little baby is pretty small.”

“Then where is he’s going to put it?”

“It’s fairly sticky,” Hartley explains. “Roll it between your fingers for a few seconds and the oil on your skin will activate the adhesive. It’s strong enough to stick to a single hair.”

Joe wanders over to the console and leans against the back of the monitors. “I gotta agree with Caitlin. He knew you were going to check the old poultry plant for Hunter even when he told you not to. Then he destroyed your phone because you brought a mic along for your last meeting. He doesn’t trust you and you’ve shown him that he’s right not to.”

Barry feels a little sweat prickling on the back of his neck. He knows Joe and Caitlin are right, but he _needs_ to know where Hunter is. They don’t understand how madding it is to be in the dark like this. It’s…it’s…

“I’m sorry, Barry, but I’m going to say the one thing you’re probably trying to avoid right now,” Harry announces from his spot on the far side of the room. Beside him, Jesse is seated at another console, scrolling at breakneck speed through the most recent information O’Shaughnessy sent them. “If Zoom really is going to let Barry touch base with his boyfriend over the phone tonight, this might be the last time he speaks with him alive. Zoom only ever let his hostages live as long as he can find a use for them on my Earth. So either Barry defies him and Zoom kills Hunter out of spite, or Barry capitulates and Hunter naturally outlives his usefulness. It isn’t a question of _if_ Zoom murders him; it’s a question of how cruelly he’s going to inevitably orchestrate his death.”

Harrison’s little speech feels like a punch to the gut. But he’s not wrong. He’d just given voice to Barry’s own fears, the ones too terrible for him to even consider.

An uneasy hush falls over the room. Even Jesse pauses in her work before she slowly begins scrolling through the data again, shaken by the revelation that someone’s life is truly at steak here.

Caitlin stares down at her feet in a begrudging sort of acceptance of the truth. Joe rubs the stubble on his jaw in solemn contemplation.

Quietly, Barry takes the mic from Cisco and puts it in his pocket.

Lightheaded, he then walks around the main console to glance over Jesse’s shoulder at her work. She’s currently going over CCTV recordings from the industrial sector of Keystone City. So far, Barry sees nothing unusual.

“When Zoom left you at the park, he ran out of Central toward Star City,” she explains. “Your FBI friend thinks he ran out of town today to escape the cameras before re-entering Central somewhere else. He sent me a few possible hideouts, but I haven’t seen any kind of activity at them just yet.”

“Thank you,” he says quietly, still grateful for her assistance. He knows this can’t be easy for her, having to face off against the man who kidnapped and tortured her for months on end so soon after finding her freedom. She’s shown a considerable amount of personal strength since learning Zoom was still alive. Barry couldn’t be prouder of her.

Leaning back, he glances at the computer next to her where Harry has set up shop. Seeing as the brunt of Zoom’s army came from Earth-2, Barry gave the list of mythological names to Harry to see if he could match the files with any known metahumans. With O’Shaughnessy’s additional intel on the Earth-1 metahumans, it doesn’t come as much of a surprise to Barry to see so many legal names added to the list.

“Looks like you’ve gotten pretty far in just a couple of hours.”

“I can remember almost all the metahumans from my Earth,” Harry grumbles. Barry knows that only part of Harry’s impeccable memory on this matter is because of his massive intellect. He knows the man still feels guilty for all the lives he inadvertently ruined. “Or, the oldest ones anyway. It’s like every time I go back home, a new one crops up in the news.”

“So…no idea who Echidna is yet?”

“I’m afraid not,” he sighs. “Agent O’Shaughnessy and I tried brainstorming over the phone together, but there’s just too little information to go by. He might have a better idea of what were looking at once he gets here and sees the updated list.”

“There’s virtually no hope at figuring out who they are?”

Harry winces, as though he’s still hesitant to say that much himself. Harry never was a defeatist. “Not necessarily…The lack of information itself is very telling, as is Echidna’s name. Zoom might consider this person to be his equal. Even if he didn’t, he considers them important enough to his master plan that he can’t risk having anyone discover who they are. In fact, I would almost argue that this person is important for all his future plans. For example, we know you somehow play a role in his current game, and yet your file is more forthcoming. This person needs to be his best kept secret if he wants to continue using them.

“And there’s another thing—Zoom isn’t only keeping this information secret from his own operatives. He knows the authorities would’ve gotten a hold of these files sooner or later, because why else would he have everything coded? Therefore, Echidna isn’t a metahuman in hiding. They’re either someone with a prominent criminal record and are therefore a public figure, or they’re a regular person who pays their taxes on time and can be easily tracked down by the government.”

Barry nods slowly in agreement. This was certainly something he could work with. “That’s pretty amazing, Harry. I just wish we had some idea what their powers were. It would make figuring out Zoom’s so-called master plan a hell of a lot easier.”

“I don’t know, but if I had to guess…they’re weak. At least in a combative setting. Zoom is, after all, trying to protect them, and most of the other people he chooses to surround himself with can handle a little heat. Other than that…” Harry waves his hand vaguely, staring at Echidna’s file on his screen. The only details it entails are:

_Active: Always_

_Status: Alive_

_Location: Unknown_.

“ ‘Active always’ ?” Barry murmurs, hoping to jostle some important connection into place. He feels like this is a riddle more than anything else, designed with malicious delight to taunt them.

“They’ve been around for as long as Zoom,” Harry explains. “Zoom’s likely known them since he first became a metahuman himself. I guess you could almost say they’re his oldest friend.”

“Zoom has friends?” Jesse snorts derisively, gazed fixed on her screen.

Gently, Barry reaches out to give her shoulder a comforting squeeze.

She pats his hand appreciatively in return.

“I’m almost done with the rest of the list,” Harry continues. “I figure if I can’t pin a name on everyone else, I can maybe figure out who Echidna is by process of elimination.”

It somehow sounds like a long shot, but Barry nods anyway, backing away to leave them to their work. They don’t need him hovering anxiously over them.

He almost bumps into Iris as he goes. She stops him with a hand between his shoulder blades, smirking in a curious way when he turns to face her. “I did a little digging,” she says.

He knows Cisco asked her earlier to dig up anything she could find on Greene and his team of operatives in the hopes of tracking Zoom down through his lackeys. Hope suddenly springs anew inside him. “Oh?”

“I’m still pulling favors on people at _Picture News_ who do work on ex-military individuals, but I started a little search of my own and found something peculiar.” Tucked under her arm is something that looks like a stack of high school year books. Old year books, actually, and not from their high school. “These are Hunter’s. I got a hold of his mom and told her you wanted older pictures of him for a pet project. She has a _lot_ of ridiculous photographs of him, by the way, but I found _these_ to be the most telling…”

“The most telling of what?” he asks, scanning the pictures in the first book. It’s from Hunter’s freshman year. His hair is short and spiky and he has a smarmy look on his face in his class photograph. A quick scan through the book also reveals a few pictures of him running in track or swimming. There’s also one of him attempting to do a sloppy handstand next to a group of cheerleaders, who pull off the move with more grace. Hunter’s clearly an awkward but fun-loving kid. His smile reaches his eyes in every picture.

There are no track and field shots of Hunter in his sophomore year, although he clearly sticks with the swim team. He also joins the engineering club, standing next to something that looks like a battle-bot with a group of seven other boys and girls. He’s noticeably taller in all his photographs. Still just as smarmy, but at least he’s grown out his hair. Looks less like a punk this year.

As a junior, Hunter rejoins track. He wins first place in both the 400m and the 1500m races, muscles in his arms and legs now better defined, sweating pouring down his face as he dances victoriously around the finish line. In the engineering club, his team builds something like looks like a tiny windmill, although the editor of the yearbook neglected to write down what it actually does, only that it won second in the city championship. Soaking wet at a swim meet, Hunter pulls a laughing and flailing girl in close to kiss her cheek. Her name is Jeanine Chou and Barry knows she and Hunter will spend the next four years of their lives falling in love until her brother dies and she returns home to Chicago to help her grieving family cope.

Barry immediately recognizes a trend in Hunter’s many Senior photographs. Most of them are shared with Jeanine. The adoration between them is palpable, but not obscene like some of the other shots of graduating students groping and snogging. Their love is an innocent but powerful thing, not something that they take likely. Barry can tell by the candid shots of them simply looking at one another, standing close enough to broadcast their togetherness, but still not touching. The shine Hunter has in his eyes when he gazes at his high school sweetheart is something Barry has seen recently directed at himself.

His heart aches as he scans the photographs. Even from just the discussions he’s had with Hunter about his boyhood, he knows Hunter does not love lightly. He chooses his partners carefully and invests himself wholly in them. That is why it took death itself to tear him away from two of the greatest loves of his life. Otherwise, he’d be married to one of them by now, a man utterly devoted to his lovers.

Barry wonders if Hunter ever had plans to marry him.

Barry also wonders if Zolomon could’ve been a different man if he’d only had a youth as wonderful as this.

His knowledge of Zolomon’s past is shamefully limited. Harry once told him people tend to bury the facts concerning serial killers on his Earth, as though trying to erase the evidence of their very existence. What Barry does know is that Zolomon grew up in an orphanage, attending a state run, all-boys school funded by the facility. He received honors every year. There were no photographs of the children at his school and barely any clubs to keep a lonely boy such as himself entertained. He was a solitary creature, but a clever one. Eventually, he won a scholarship to Central City University, where he studied chemistry and physics. After he graduated with his Masters, the authorities began finding the bodies. It was estimated he’d been killing ever since he was 16.

There were no records of Zolomon having ever loved anyone.

All these thoughts—both terrible and wonderful—pass through Barry’s mind in the blink of the eye. In that same time, he almost forgets what it is Iris wanted him to find in these yearbooks. But he finds it alright, in a Senior shot of the Hunter in the engineering club.

Standing side by side with Barry’s boyfriend is Benjamin Coleman.

But he doesn’t look at all like Benjamin Coleman Barry met at the art gallery.

“The face doesn’t match the name, does it?” Iris points out triumphantly. The boy in question is much taller than the man Barry met. His hair is jet black and his eyes are a warm brown, a complete contrast to his imposter’s fair complexion. “I wanted to look up his address and phone number to hopefully glean something about his doppelganger’s personality with an informal interview, but I have a feeling I won’t turn up anything helpful.”

“But Hunter recognized him,” Barry breathes in disbelief. “He’d been so sure of it…”

“If he’s working for Zoom, chances are he’s a metahuman. Clearly he—or someone else in Zoom’s organization—can mess around with a person’s head.”

“That’s terrifying…”

Iris reaches out to give his arm a comforting squeeze. “Be careful around this guy, okay?”

“I will,” he says faintly. Then he clears his throat. “Harry saw footage of this guy earlier, but he didn’t say much about him. If he doesn’t actually recognize him, this might be Echidna.”

Iris gives him another squeeze and a quick smile before taking the yearbooks back. Her heels click loudly against the floor as she joins Harry in the corner. As soon as she’s gone, Wally smoothly slides into the vacant spot before Barry. In his outstretched hand is a cellphone.

Barry’s cellphone.

“Thanks,” Barry says as he drops it into his other pocket.

“Hartley says he fixed it with another one of his magic mics…Do you know what you’re going to say to Zoom?”

Exhausted, Barry shakes his head. “No idea. I have to play nice. That’s all I know.”

Wally sighs, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other. “Doesn’t he…doesn’t he _scare_ you?”

Barry can tell his friend is afraid, which is odd considering how powerful Wally will one day become. He almost wishes he could outright tell the kid how little he has to be afraid of, but he knows that sharing the future with Wally will potentially spoil it for it.

Instead, Barry nods and goes with the truth. “A lot, actually…He scares me a lot.”

“You don’t look scared,” Wally says, grinning a little, like he’s trying to sooth Barry’s own nerves. Barry appreciates the gesture.

“I think the day you no longer fear your enemy is the day they’ve outsmarted you once and for all,” he replies, hoping Wally remembers these words of wisdom in the years to come. “Fear is a healthy thing in the right amount.”

Wally’s grin eases into a more natural smile. He pats Barry’s elbow amiably and then wanders over to watch Jesse work at lightning speed.

Taking a moment to brace himself, Barry rolls up the cuffs of his sleeves and turns toward the main console just in time to catch the jacket Cisco tosses his way.

Caitlin glances at her wrist watch. “Are you ready, Barry?”

He nods.

And then he runs.

He runs and he tries to forget about all the little fears niggling at the back of his mind. He tries to forget how cruel and resourceful Zolomon can be when the man is desperate. He tries to forget how little time his boyfriend has left.

It’s hard at first, but then he surrenders a part of his mind to the Speed Force. There’s a gentle humming in the air beneath the cackle of lightning, accompanied by a comforting warmth. Bathed in light, he feels just a little at peace again.

It helps to clear his head before he skids to a halt in the park at 4:59. Zolomon, of course, is already there, wearing the same black coat, hair slicked back from his face. His arms are stretched out along the back of the bench where he’s parked himself, face tilted up to admire the rosy hue of the darkening sky. As Barry approaches, Zolomon turns his head toward him and grins.

“I thought being late was kind of your ‘thing’,” Zolomon quips. “Are you only ever this punctual for me?”

“I try not to drag out my chores. The sooner I get them done, the better.”

“Ouch,” Zolomon winces in mock agony. “I know I’m exhausting, Barry, but being with me can be fun if you learn to make a game of it.”

“This isn’t a game.”

“If you insist,” he chuckles, finally rising from his seat. He turns the collar of his jacket up against the wind, then gestures down the winding path. “Shall we?”

Suddenly, he disappears in a streak of blue lightning.

Barry takes chase.

Thankfully, Zolomon doesn’t lead him very far. He slows to a halt in the mouth of an alleyway between a shoe shop and a popular Chinese restaurant. Zolomon stares up at the sign lovingly. “They’ve got this place on my Earth too. Food’s just as good on either side of the portal.”

Barry shrugs and follows him inside. There’s a long buffet up against the fall wall, but Zolomon orders a few dishes from the server as they’re being seated by the front window. She pats him affectionately on the arm and wanders off to the kitchen without writing anything down. Obviously, Zolomon is one of their regulars.

Barry wonders how long the man has been hiding in plain sight.

He also wonders if this how Zolomon managed to kill so many people, even before he was a speedster. He can certainly put the charm on easily enough when he wants to.

“You look confused,” Zolomon says as their server returns with a pitcher of water to pour their drinks. He flashes her a quick smile.

Barry waits until the woman is out of earshot before he speaks. “Are you nice to her because you like her, or do you sometimes think about killing her?”

Zolomon arches an eyebrow at him, clearly caught unaware by the question. “Wow, what a loaded thing to ask...”

“I’m just trying to get to know you.”

Zolomon shrugs. He obviously can’t argue with that. “I’ll be honest—the old me would’ve killed her. I would’ve busted the light above the back door the day before the crime to reduce visibility in the alleyway, then I would’ve grabbed her on her way home after her evening shift.” He tilts his head slightly back and scratches his throat, gaze focused on an elderly couple strolling past the window. “Before I had my powers, I was a loose cannon…I take it you know how they caught me?”

Barry nods. Zolomon had escalated to killing three to four people a week in the month leading up to his arrest. He killed two people on his final night, the second one not too far from the first. The police had already been beating the streets on foot looking for him.

He was described as a wild man when they finally caught up to him.

“I think the Speed Force rewired my brain,” he continues. “I no longer have an insatiable appetite. I continued to kill people around the time I met you only to keep everyone in line. Granted, I still didn’t _feel_ bad about doing it, but I like the family that runs this place and I’ll be happy to let them live their lives in peace…Does that answer your question?”

Barry nods.

He’s a little surprised by the man’s honesty.

Zolomon takes note of this. “You weren’t expecting a lie this late in the game, were you?”

“You have a lot to gain by trying to endear me to your better self.”

Zolomon leans forward, bracing his elbows against the table, clasping his hands together. “I want to endear you to my true self; I _want_ to be a better man.”

“You have a long way to go,” Barry replies on impulse. He has to remind himself that riling up the other man only puts Hunter at greater risk, so he sighs and says, “But I don’t exactly believe in hopeless cases. So, who knows? Maybe you can change.”

Zolomon’s smile is a subtle thing. Quite soft.

Quite like Hunter’s.

Barry has to avert his gaze for a moment. He glances out the window and watches a man trying to keep pace with his overexcited Golden Labrador across the street, but he can still see Zolomon’s faint reflection in the glass as the man sips his water and watches Barry in return.

“You still haven’t told me what you want,” Barry says, keeping his eyes focused on the dog as it strains against its leash. He feels an invisible weight around his own throat too. “The longer you drag this out, the harder I find it to believe your good intentions.”

“By the end of tonight, I’ll tell you outright what I want from you.”

Barry snaps his gaze back to Hunter.

“But first we’re going to have ourselves a nice meal,” Zolomon continues quietly, “and then you’re going to have a quick chat with my doppelganger, as we agreed.”

Barry’s heart skips a beat at the thought of speaking with Hunter again.

Although, part of him still dreads the thought of it being their last conversation.

He clears his throat. “I have a few more questions for you.”

Zolomon unfolds his hands in a welcoming gesture. “Ask away.”

“You claim you got your urges under control after you became a speedster and yet you developed a Doomsday device to destroy the multiverse. You’ve also gotten back into contact with your old ‘army’. How do you explain that?”

“A kind of mania set in when I realized I was dying. Before then, I only terrorized the citizens of Central City on my Earth so far as I needed to in order to keep them under my thumb. I think Harry can attest to that.”

“I have questions about your relationship with him as well,” Barry sighs, “But that doesn’t explain the army.”

“My ‘army’ kept itself in operation even after I vanished. I’ve returned to fulfill my last promise to them, and then…” he unclasps his hands again, grinning, “Well, I’ll explain that bit later. Suffice to say, they have their own agenda. I don’t care what they do once my business with them is concluded.”

“Is your friend Greene aware of this? I imagine he’ll be heartbroken to see you go.”

“Greene’s a swell guy,” Zolomon chuckles. “I met him in a bar fight, of all things. The man’s a heavy hitter.”

“He’s ex military.”

“Well, you know what they say—you can take the man out of the war, but you can’t take the war out of the man. He’ll find somebody else to entertain himself with after I’m gone.”

“Where are you going?”

Zolomon winks. “Again, I’m saving that secret for later.”

“You have an unhealthy obsession with secrets.”

“Then let me unravel another one for you.”

“Harry,” he says before taking a sip of his own water. “I know you worked on Velocity together. How did you manage that?”

“It was simple, actually.” Zolomon laughs a little under his breath and shakes his head, as though caught up in a funny memory. “It was already public knowledge that he was developing weapons to combat the metahumans, so I approached him as the Flash and told him I needed help taking down Zoom. He was eager to help, up until I started to take more Velocity than strictly needed. He was always leery of me after that.”

Harry had been naturally edgy with everyone, it seemed. Barry always chalked it up to the troubles the man was having with Zoom, which appeared to be true.

He wondered what Harry was like before this whole metahuman business on Earth 2.

“Harry’s a tough guy, isn’t he?” Zolomon muses, staring down into his glass of water. “Did you know he was a P.O.W.?”

Barry blinks in surprise, trying to jog his memory. “He said something about the War of the Americas once, but he never mentioned anything about being a prisoner.”

“Finished his PhD by the time he was 20 and was conscripted into the army a month after defending his thesis. He was a tunneller for the first little while, building custom bombs that he’d plant underground beneath enemy territory. Then some higher up realized how brilliant he was and hauled him out of the ground to develop new weaponry.” Zolomon flicks his gaze up at Barry. “He was captured in the second last week of the war and tortured until it was all over. So, if you ever wonder why he’s so moody all the time, I think it’s probably because he’s got PTSD.”

Barry shifts uncomfortably in his seat. He knew the whole team was listening in on their conversation. He’d been hoping Zolomon would share his personal thoughts and feelings on his time working with Harry, but instead Zolomon shared delicate information concerning the other man’s past.

He hopes Harry can forgive him for unintentionally prying.

“That’s fascinating,” Barry replies, “But I’m more interested in your history. For example, when did you decide to pose as two speedsters? Wasn’t being Zoom enough for you?”

Zolomon chuckles and sips his water again. The mirth in his eyes is a curious thing. “I didn’t start off as Zoom.”

Barry is mildly surprised by his answer. “You mean to tell me you were the Flash _first_? That’s quite a change from being a serial killer.”

Zolomon shrugs, like he understands the incredulity of it all but doesn’t have a better truth to offer. “Like I said, the Speed Force rewired my brain. I think, on all the Earths that have speedsters, it tries to make the good ones first. Well, I was the _only_ one on my Earth and even then I didn’t have anything to keep me grounded. I became Zoom because I still needed to find a way to exercise my urges; I kept my mantle as the Flash because of this newfound need to be good.” He smiles a little. “And inevitably, the Speed Force found a way to keep me from tipping completely backward by leading me to you.”

“Again, your darker urges seemed to be getting the better of you the last time we fought.”

“And the Speed Force took me to town because of it. I’ve learned my lesson.”

“I find it hard to believe that with my boyfriend in your custody.”

“I already promised you that I would release him healthy and whole once our business is complete. I know it’s difficult, but try to have a little faith in me.”

Zolomon, of course, is missing the entire point, but his response is so calm and collected, Barry wonders if he’s genuinely suffering from some delusion of benevolence, as though there’s nothing wrong with what he’s doing.

“Oh, I know what I’m doing is wrong,” Zolomon says, jarring Barry with his spontaneous answer, although Barry’s sure his distrust is written all over his face. “Given our unique history, you must realize there’s no other way I could’ve approached you. You want to fight me. Even now, being as civil as we are, I can see it burning in your eyes.”

“Do you find that disconcerting?” Barry asks quietly, dangerously. Despite himself, he feels his ire rising.

Dining with the devil will do that to you, he supposes.

“No,” Zolomon replies. “I find them quite beautiful.”

Uncomfortable Barry looks down at his chopsticks and breaks them apart, rubbing them together to get rid of any splinters.

Their waitress returns with their first dish, a bowl of fried rice.

He begins to wonder where to go next with this conversation when two young woman are suddenly seated at the table directly behind Zolomon. Given how tightly packed the tables are in this restaurant and the absence of ambient music, he realizes he’s no longer able to ask anymore piercing questions. No doubt that was Zolomon’s intention when he brought them here.

Another two dishes make their way out in quick succession, pork chow mien and vegetables with beef. Barry tries to eat, but it’s hard getting anything down with the lead weight already in his stomach. He takes small bites and chews endlessly.

Casually, Zolomon asks, “Do you know about the ring?”

“Hm?” he says, mind racing for an answer. He comes up with nothing.

“The one stashed in the back of his bedside table,” Zolomon elaborates. “It’s in a small blue box with a rubber band wrapped around it.”

The lead weight in his stomach suddenly gains another five pounds. Barry knows the box he’s talking about.

It’s Jonah’s engagement ring. Nothing extravagant; just a slim band of silver, but an important promise all the same. Jonah had apparently asked Hunter’s mother to return it to him after the funeral. He didn’t want to be buried with it, fearing Hunter would feel bound to him even in death. 

Barry only knew about it because Ashley mentioned it in passing once, how Hunter used to keep it on his desk in the living room of his apartment. It made its way into the bedside table after they’d become an official couple, although Barry once stood in the hallway and observed Hunter holding the box in his hands, turning it over thoughtfully before shoving it back into the drawer.

Barry pushes the clumps of rice around in his bowl with his chopsticks. “It belongs to his late fiancé. I don’t begrudge him for wanting to keep it.”

“You’re not the type that would, but I’m sure finding it wasn’t the first reminder you’ve had that he wouldn’t be with you if circumstances had been different.”

Barry can feel his chest tightening. “But he’s with me now. That’s all the matters.”

“True,” he chuckles. “Which begs the question: if Jonah came back, to whom would your lover cleave?”

The countless journeys he’s made through time and their many cruel and unusual consequences suddenly come to mind. Barry is bombarded with a series of terrible flashbacks just at the thought of Zolomon messing with the timeline again. “You wouldn’t be that stupid…” he says faintly.

“Of course not,” Zolomon laughs. “I’ve learned from your mistakes, Barry. I just needed to point something out.”

“And what’s that?”

“That you’re not his first love,” Zolomon replies. “But you certainly are mine.”

Barry feels lightheaded and ill.

He feels so very, terribly trapped.

Eventually, he forces himself to ask, “What about Caitlin?”

Zolomon nods slowly, better prepared for that question this time. “She reminded me very much of my mother. She made me feel…nostalgic. I wish her well—truly. She’s the closest thing I had to a friend in a long time.”

Barry wonders what Caitlin thinks of that.

Barry pops a clump of rice into his mouth. He spends a small eternity chewing on it as the women behind Zolomon discuss all the weird things their respective children do now that they’re teenagers.

He allows his mind to drift as they polish off the meal. The place is almost completely packed by the time they finish, the volume of the room loud enough to almost drown out his thoughts.

When the waitress comes with the bill, she gives Barry a worried look. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Everything was delicious,” he says, hoping she isn’t attributing the queasy look on his face to his opinion of the food. “I’m sorry. I just haven’t been feeling well for a while now.”

She tries to smile, still obviously concerned. Meanwhile, Zolomon glances at the bill and pulls out his wallet, dropping a generous amount on the collection plate. He tells her to keep the change, smiling as she grabs the cash and wanders off to the till.

Trying to shake off the fog inside his head, Barry asks, “Is that money stolen or is it really yours?”

“It’s mine.”

“And who exactly is paying you?”

Zolomon grins. “The U.S. Government.”

Barry suddenly remembers Zoom’s ‘army’ and snorts into his glass of water as he takes one last sip for the road.

When they step outside, it’s only 5:47pm. Zolomon gestures him down the road toward the docks, strolling casually alongside Barry as they work their way quietly through the riverside park. There are a few people milling about, but not too many given the chilly weather. After a while, Zolomon pauses by the dock railing and stares out across the river at the shimmering image of Keystone City.

Barry leans against the railing with his elbows and gazes down into the dark, swirling water.

Zolomon whips out his cellphone.

A wave of nausea washes over Barry, but he fights it back down. He can’t tear his eyes away from the water.

He’s so scared right now.

Zolomon punches in a number and holds the phone against his ear. He says nothing for a long time before he pulls it back down to type in another command. Then he leans against the railing next to Barry and offers him the phone. Smiling, he says, “I think it’s for you.”

Barry stares at the screen.

He can see an image of Hunter there, sitting on a chair in front of a concrete wall. His hair is damp and he’s dressed in green hospital scrubs, but otherwise there doesn’t seem to be anything out of place with him. Currently, he’s glaring at someone behind the camera and little off to the left.

“Hunter?” Barry asks. “Can you hear me?”

 _“Barry?”_ Hunter stares down at the camera itself now. _“Yes, I can hear you. Are you alright?”_

“Yes.” Not really, but he can manage. Swallowing the bit of bile in the back of his throat, he says, “What’s the worst joke you’ve ever heard?”

_“…I’m sorry?”_

Barry side-eyes Zolomon briefly. “I need to know this is really you.”

Zolomon winks at him and then stares back across the river at Keystone City.

_“Oh, well…god, it’s one that Tina told me. I think I’ve shared it with you before: ‘Two goldfish are swimming in a tank. One turns to the other and says, "You drive, I'll man the gun." ‘.”_

Zolomon huffs out a small laugh.

The corner of Barry’s lip quirks. “Yeah, I remember that one.”

 _“She has about a million.”_ Hunter rubs the side of his face wearily. _“Anyway, it’s good to hear from you. I thought maybe they were lying about the call.”_

“Did they hurt you?”

 _“Honestly, no. The ambiance is painful enough on its own though. It’s just generally gloomy in here. Cold and damp and—what?”_ He looks off screen for a moment. Faintly, Barry can hear someone speaking in the background.

Cold and damp and gloomy.

He’s somewhere underground, perhaps?

Barry suddenly has an inkling of where Hunter might be.

“Don’t make me end this call prematurely,” Zolomon drawls. Barry resists the urge to put a little distance between them. “Play nice.”

 _“Does **he** really have to be here right now?”_ Hunter mutters at the camera. _“I mean, obviously we’re getting sufficient supervision from **this** end of the conversation…”_

“He says he’s going to let you go,” Barry replies.

_“They’ve been telling me much the same over here. But you and I don’t really believe them, do we, beautiful?”_

Barry can feel his chest tightening again.

No. He doesn’t really believe them either.

“Calm down,” Zolomon sighs. “If I killed you, ‘beautiful’ would never forgive me.”

_“You killed his father, didn’t you?”_

“Not one of my brightest moments, I’ll admit. I would undo it if I could.”

 _“If you wanted to get in his good graces, you would release us and put an end to this game,”_ Hunter replies hotly. He’s distracted once again by the man behind the camera. This time, the tone of voice is a little louder; angrier.

‘ _us_ ’

Hunter isn’t the only hostage.

“And he will release us,” Barry replies, playing dumb for the moment, pretending his misinterpreted Hunter’s comment. “He says he’s going to tell me what he wants tonight. Just stay calm, okay? I’m going to save you.”

Hunter pushes his glasses a little further up his nose and reluctantly nods. _“I know, I just…if he tries to sleep with you, screw the whole ‘hero’s honor’ thing and punch him in the dick for me, okay?”_

“Possessive, aren’t you?” Zolomon quips, seemingly delighted by Hunter’s remark.

“No, he just knows me well,” Barry mutters.

He will _happily_ deal a low blow in his next battle with Zoom.

Zolomon shrugs. “I think this conversation is beginning to devolve into nonsense. If you have anything important left to say, please do so now.”

_“Hey, this isn’t fair—”_

“The more time you take to chat, the longer you have to wait for your freedom. Please share your closing remarks so that we may continue our business.”

_“Barry—”_

“I love you,” Barry says quietly, heart racing. He needs Hunter to shut up and understand that he loves him.

Barry loves him so goddamn much.

He hopes this isn’t the last chance he’ll ever have to tell Hunter that.

Hunter is silent for a long moment. Then he says, _“I love you too, Barry.”_

The call cuts out.

“Hey!” Barry shouts, frantic.

“Your boyfriend was told to behave himself, and he didn’t.  I’m surprised they didn’t cut him off earlier.”

Barry doesn’t realize there’s tears stinging at the corners of his eyes until he turns to Zolomon and slams the side of his fist against his chest, his vision of the man’s face momentarily blurring. “ _You’re lying_! You killed my father and now you’re going to kill him! You’re a murderer! You—”

“Shh,” Zolomon murmurs gently. He plucks the phone from Barry’s hand, casually tossing it over the railing and into the river. Barry watches it descend into the darkness with no small amount of confusion. “They tend to bug everything.”

“…Who’re ‘they’?”

“The government.”

“You—”

“Calm down,” Zolomon says, his voice soft and deep. “Now, I’m going to tell you what I want and what I’ll give you in return for it.”

Barry’s mouth works in surprise before he snaps it shut again. All at once, he feels composed again.

He would be lying if he said he wasn’t eager to finally discover what Zolomon’s playing at here.

“Tell me,” Barry says.

“Like I’ve told you before, I’ve been hopping between dimensions lately,” Zolomon begins. “I found one without metahumans. No S.T.A.R. Labs, really, so there probably never will be.”

Cautiously, Barry slips his hands into his coat pockets. A chill wind tousles his hair.

“I want you to come away with me,” Zolomon continues calmly. “I’m not asking you to love me. Just…be there. You can become the Flash again, if you’d like. I’m not interested in being Zoom anymore. I just want a little peace and quiet in my life.”

Barry doesn’t find his voice immediately. He was expecting Zolomon to demand something of the sort, but somehow it still comes as a shock to hear it out loud.

Eventually, he says, “Why do you need me to make this fantasy a reality?”

Zolomon smiles a little sadly. Something inside of Barry quivers with an indescribable emotion. “Because the urges still rear their ugly head from time to time, but when I touch you, I get the same thrill I got doing all those horrible things in my old life…I can’t beat this monster on my own and I know it.”

Barry fights the urge to flat out deny Zolomon and takes a moment to consider his request. He doesn’t love Zolomon and he never will. If he left with the man, he’d be trapped alone with his enemy until the end time. He would never see his family again.

He would be a stranger in the mirror image of his home world.

On the other hand…on the other hand, he would remove the greatest threat from this world. He doesn’t know if he can contain Zolomon on his own forever, but if Zolomon is telling the truth…

“What are you offering in exchange?”

A strange light dances in Zolomon’s eyes. It almost seems like hope. “All the information concerning the metahuman army the government has been developing over the last three years. Everyone involved in it. Even the higher ups, as well as a feasible plan of action on how to get them out of power. I’m sure your FBI friend could do a lot of damage with what I have to offer. And with me gone, well…that’s one hell of a victory for ‘Team Flash’ all on its own, isn’t it?”

“…And if I said yes, how long would it be before you release my boyfriend?”

“I would deliver him to S.T.A.R. Labs tomorrow morning. We’d leave together immediately after my arrival.”

Barry goes numb inside just thinking about it. He doesn’t think Zolomon’s lying. He just…

He doesn’t know if he can do it.

Unfortunately, he knows he would be helping a lot of people if he did.

His mouth is dry from nerves, but he’s still somehow able to say, “I can’t agree to anything without first discussing this with my team. If I go, I’ll be leaving them in a lurch. They’ll have to devise a way to battle the metahumans of this Earth in my absence.”

“This sounds suspiciously like a ‘yes’,” Zolomon says faintly, getting the same far away look in his eyes Hunter usually does when he can hardly believe something good is finally coming his way. Barry’s heart aches at the memory.

“I…I just need to figure something out first,” Barry says, but his voice sounds distant in his ears as he takes a step forward to wrap his hands around the back of Zolomon’s neck, bringing him in for a kiss.

All at once, Barry becomes something electric.

Paradise is lost and found again. Liquid euphoria runs through his veins, igniting every nerve, sending him spiraling into that same heavenly warmth he’s only ever found running in the Speed Force.

He’s only dimly aware of the arms that wrap around his waist and pin him against his enemy’s broad chest. Zolomon deepens the kiss; Barry cards his fingers through Zolomon’s hair. They’re two pieces of a puzzle finally slotting into place, so perfectly aligned it seems almost unnatural.

It probably is.

The softer colours and sounds of reality slowly creep back into his consciousness as they part for air. Zolomon nips briefly at his lips again, but he doesn’t dip into the Speed Force this time. He just holds Barry and kisses him, trembling.

“That was…” Barry gasps, letting his head fall back, staring up at the stars winking into existence as the sky bruises with the familiar colours of the night. He feels bone-tired but satisfied as Zolomon peppers lazy kisses along his exposed throat and behind his left ear.

“All yours for the taking,” Zolomon breathes against his warm skin. He sounds like he’s run a proper marathon. “It’s why there’s two of us. We’re supposed to feed off each other this way.”

“It’s unbelievable.”

“It’s greater than anything I’ve ever felt before,” Zolomon continues, slowly unwrapping his arms from Barry’s waist. He straights his coat and runs his hands through his hair to set it straight, but he looks horribly smug. Barry tries to sort himself out in a similar way, somewhat ashamed of his debauchery.

He hopes word of this never gets around to Hunter.

“Did that help with your decision, Barry?”

He brushes his fingers against his lips. They still tingle. “…I don’t know how long it’ll take my team to prepare themselves, but…but yeah. I agree to your terms. I will need to see Hunter alive and well before we go. _In person_. Any tricks, and the deal’s off.”

“Then I’ll let you get your affairs in order.” Zolomon’s gaze crawls the length of Barry’s body, triumph evident in the crooked curl of his lips. “11am sharp, barring any unforeseen circumstances. Soon, you and I will be moving on to a much better life.”

“Alive and well,” Barry reminds him coolly, turning to leave.

Zolomon curls a hand around his left forearm and swings him suddenly into another kiss. Barry lets him have it.

Barry thinks if he could curb such commanding gestures, he could learn to live with this man.

“You’re a clever boy,” Zolomon whispers before vanishing in a blaze of light.

Barry balances himself against the rush of air that whips after the other speedster. Between one heartbeat and the next, he races off to S.T.A.R. Labs.

He skids to a halt before the main console, the paper on Caitlin’s clipboard flipping over in her hands. “Did it work?” he asks, staring between Cisco and Hartley.

Cisco makes a vague sound of extreme pain. Hartley glances once at the screen, looks Barry dead in the eyes, and says, “It’s still on you.”

“What? No, I—” Barry shoves his hand into his pocket, feeling for the tracker. It isn’t there. He slipped it into Zolomon’s hair when they were kissing…

And then Zolomon straightened himself out.

Barry runs his hand along the back of his right arm. Sure enough, his fingers catch on the tiny nub.

His heart sinks into his stomach.

He covers his mouth with his hand and tries to breath through his nose. He’s beginning to feel lightheaded again, but he can’t succumb to this. Not only does Zolomon know Barry tried to track him, but they’re still no closer to finding him.

Barry doesn’t know if the man will keep his word about Hunter.

“Did you try his old hideout?” Harry asks from his seat across the room. “We’re just assuming he’s hiding on this Earth, but he could be utilizing his old haunt. The way your boyfriend described his settings, it sounded like he could be in the old train station.”

Jesse shudders.

Cisco jumps to his feet so suddenly, he just about flips his chair over in his haste. “One portal to hell coming right up…”

Harry scrambles to his feet as well, ducking quickly into Cisco’s side office to grab his blaster. Joe, meanwhile, clicks the safety off his gun.

Jesse joins the four of them in the centre of the room once Cisco begins opening a path between their two worlds. The blue fractals of time and space bleed gradually outward. The absence of order is a cold wind against Barry’s face.

Once it’s large enough, he slips each arm around Harry and Joe and pulls them through.

Jesse follows suit with Cisco shortly after, landing with a thud in the abandoned railway station Zolomon once called home. His things are still there—the workbench, the cages, the chains—but the tunnels are empty save for the hollow echo of their arrival.

Barry and Jesse take off in tandem. They know without speaking to search opposite ends of station and beyond. Barry runs the length of the tracks until he hits a dead end; he knows Jesse’s route will only leave her to the mouth of a cave situated hundreds of feet above a forest.

Barry returns to main station. Harry and Joe have their weapons raised, but they can tell by the look on Barry’s face that nobody is here. “I’m sorry,” Harry breathes.

Barry shakes his head, because it isn’t Harry’s fault. All the same, he takes one look at the workbench and flips it over. Tools and yellowed parchment paper fly through the air. They’ve barely touched the floor before Barry shatters the glass on one of Zolomon’s cages. He wants to destroy everything. He wants to destroy _Zoom_. He wants to take his throat in his hands and—

The hand on his shoulder startles him out of his reverie.

Jesse pulls him back into the here and now with that simple gesture, eyes pained as she stares at the shattered glass around their feet. Behind her, Barry can see the cage where she lived when she was Zoom’s prisoner.

All at once, his anger flees. In its absence, it leaves an unbearable ache.

He sobs into her shoulder as she draws him into her arms. “We’ll get him,” she whispers. “He’s my nemesis, after all. If destiny really is a thing, I’ll get him sooner or later.”

Barry clings to her tightly.

He doesn’t have the heart to tell her the Powers That Be probably want her nemesis to get them instead.

~***~

Restless, Hunter paces back and forth across his cell.

Barry’s doppelganger sits on his mattress with his back against the glass partition between them, hair still damp from his shower. He’d been sulking ever since he returned, upset both with the amount of manhandling he’d been subjected to and the continued lack of information concerning his imprisonment here. He’d simply been told to keep his mouth shut during Hunter’s call with his boyfriend and not much beyond that.

Hunter wants to talk this Barry out of his bad mood but he doesn’t know what to say and he can’t really focus anyway. His mind keeps going back to the call with his boyfriend. It was more of a taunt, really, another way for Zoom to dangle Hunter’s freedom in front of his lover.

Eventually, Hunter brings himself to a halt. He rubs his face with both hands and then says, “Are you upset because you never got a chance to say goodbye to your wife?”

Barry doesn’t turn to face him, but Hunter doesn’t miss the way the kid’s shoulders sag at his question. Quietly, he says, _“I’m never going to see her again.”_

“You can’t be certain of that.”

 _“Yes, I can,”_ he replies, just as soft. _“We know Zoom is negotiating with your boyfriend for your freedom. There’s nothing my wife has that Zoom could possibly want, and nobody has made any indication that she’s been contacted about my imprisonment here. Ergo, I’m not a bargaining chip.”_

Hunter knows he has nothing to offer the kid in the way of comfort and he feels ill at ease with Barry’s logic. “Then what are you?”

_“Disposable.”_

_“Hardly.”_

Hunter’s gaze snaps to their unexpected guest, the tall figure standing now in the centre of the room, lightning cackling in his wake.

Zoom is dressed as a civilian tonight, blond hair combed back, cheeks rosy from the chill outside. He stares thoughtfully at the floor for a moment before his gaze migrates to Barry. A small smile tugs at the corners of his lips. _“Hello, gorgeous.”_

Barry rises to his feet and adjusts his glasses, having had them returned to him after he was cleaned up. Hunter can tell the kid is nervous, even though he’s putting up an admirably brave front.

 _“Why am I here?”_ Barry demands.

Zoom taps his index finger against his lips, a small demand for silence. _“You’ll find out soon enough, beautiful. I promise.”_

“Do you _ever_ plan on telling us anything?” Hunter snaps.

Zoom wags that same finger at Hunter in admonishment. _“You have quite the temper, my friend. Normally, I’d make an example of you, but I promised Barry your continued well-being, among other things…”_

“In exchange for what?”

 _“In exchange for a very special union between us,”_ he replies, still smiling that small smile, moving closer to the glass. Hunter resists the urge to back away. _“I would love to share the details, but I doubt you’d want to hear the specifics.”_

As Hunter’s blood boils, he can see Barry blushing furiously in the corner of his eye.

Zoom takes notice of Barry’s discomfort as well and gives the boy a long once-over. _“Want to help me practice?”_

 _“Heavens, no!”_ Barry shrieks indignantly.

 _“Why not?”_ Zoom chuckles. He jabs his thumb at Hunter. _“Your doppelganger can’t get enough of this guy, and I’m the 2.0. You’d have an awful lot of fun with me.”_

“Leave him alone,” Hunter growls, hackles rising.

 _“Sleep on it, maybe?”_ Zolomon winks at the boy. _“Your doppelganger said yes, after all.”_ He side-eyes Hunter. _“He even sealed the deal with a kiss.”_

“You _fucker_. You—”

 _“ **Language** , my friend… If it makes you feel any better, he only did it to plant a tracker on me.” _Zoom raises his right hand, fingertips ghosting over his lips, seemingly taken by the memory of this kiss. _“All the same, I could tell he was having a good time. There are just some things Barry can’t deny himself, despite his better judgement.”_

Hunter doesn’t want to listen to this. He wraps his hands behind his neck and begins pacing his cell again.

If his days are numbered, he doesn’t want to waste them listening to this nonsense.

 _“Am I bothering you?”_ Zoom chuckles, tapping the glass of Hunter’s cell like a child at the zoo. _“My apologies. I just wanted to check in on my special guest…”_ He steps aside to stand before Barry’s cage now. _“I hope you’re comfortable, Dr. Allen. I told my men to be gentle with you. I trust they’ve been behaving themselves?”_

Barry completely ignores his question and says, _“I’m assuming Mr. Ramon hasn’t vibed on us yet because these cells are designed to block a metahuman’s powers?”_

 _“That they are,”_ Zoom presses a hand against the glass, as though impressed with his own ingenuity.

_“Since neither of us is a metahuman, who exactly are you hoping to trap in here?”_

_“Wouldn’t you like to know…”_

_“I would, actually.”_

_“For all your gentlemanly mannerisms, you’ve got quite the attitude too, don’t you?”_ Zoom looks horribly amused, maniac eyes gleaming. Barry shies back a step. Hunter doesn’t blame him. _“You and your doppelganger are quite alike. I love it.”_

Anxiously, Barry adjusts his glasses.

Zoom opens his mouth to continue his assault—but he’s interrupted by the series of high-pitched _beeps_ that suddenly erupt from his wristwatch. He stares down at the device in question in thin-lipped silence before he calmly walks over to the empty cell on the other side of Barry’s, opens the door, and steps inside.

Then he closes the door.

The beeping stops.

Hunter ceases in his pacing to observe their captor’s weird behavior. Before he can make another smartass remark, however, a sudden sense of foreboding bubbles up inside him. It’s accompanied by an uncharacteristic chill in the air, the temperature of the room dropping low enough that his balls shrivel up in retaliation.

He shudders as an oily sensation washes over him. In the cell next to him, Barry rubs his arms for warmth; on the next exhale, the air leaves his lungs in a little white puff.

“What’s going on?”

Zoom says nothing.

There’s nothing he needs to say, really—there’s a flash of light as another metahuman appears before them, blinding Hunter momentarily. Once the proverbial dust settles, he sees that it’s another speedster. Or so he thinks. The face of their uninvited guest has almost completely rotted away behind its black mask, one eye cloudy and white, the other dark and soulless. It sniffs the air with its decaying nose, saliva gathered along the gums of its barred teeth.

“Jesus…” Hunter breathes.

The thing snaps its head in Hunter’s direction.

He holds his breath as the creature takes a step closer. Hunter has a feeling the thing can’t actually see him, but it can still definitely sense him somehow. It’s milky eye darts from side to side as it searches for him, lifting a hand toward his cell.

It’s nails _scritch_ gently against the glass as it lowers its hand. Then it whips its head toward Barry.

Barry stares back at it, unblinking.

Between one stuttering breath and the next, it vanishes.

Nobody moves for the next few seconds. Then Zoom approaches the door of his cell, presses a button on his watch, and waltzes back on out to freedom as the lock disengages. He looks surprisingly nonchalant given that impromptu freak show.

 _“What the **hell** was that?!”_ Barry gasps, still hugging his arms to his chest. The cold wave has passed, but Hunter can feel a lingering chill in his bones.

“A time wraith,” Hunter supplies. “I think. Cisco told me they look like dead speedsters.”

 _“They **are** dead speedsters,”_ Zoom clarifies, eyeing the door. _“Hideous, aren’t they?”_

 _“Is that what happens to **all**_ _speedsters?”_ Barry suddenly looks more troubled than afraid. _“Like…like my doppelganger?”_

Zoom shakes his head.

Something clicks in the back of Hunter’s brain. “Just the ones who break the rules, right?”

Zoom tears his eyes away from the door to give Hunter a long, hard look. The corner of his lip curls into a smile. _“Just the ones who get caught.”_

“And how soon before you figure they’ll get to you?”

The smile vanishes. Zoom stares him dead in the eye, long enough that Hunter’s mouth goes dry and his heartrate picks up again.

Then Zoom breaks the spell by winking at Barry and disappearing in a flash of light.

Alone once more, Barry crumples down onto his mattress, still rubbing his arms, lost in thought. Hunter wipes the sweat off his palms against his pants and resumes pacing his cell.

He feels as though his time here is drawing to an end.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Nice try, Team Flash. Nice try...


End file.
